Tag: Democrats

The Menendez Saga

The Democratic senator for New Jersey has never been likeable to me…..he is a big business Dem that came to the Congress on the Clinton coattails.

Over the years he has had his problems with corruption and once again he has been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar.

Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey announced on Saturday that he will run against Sen. Robert Menendez in the state’s Democratic primary for Senate next year, saying he feels compelled to run against the three-term senator after he and his wife were indicted on sweeping corruption charges. Kim’s surprise announcement comes as a growing number of Democrats are calling for Menendez to step down. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman became the first Democratic senator to do so, and several members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, along with the state’s Democratic governor, have said he should resign, per the AP.

This is not something I expected to do, but I believe New Jersey deserves better,” Kim said. Fetterman, meanwhile, said his Senate colleague is “entitled to the presumption of innocence under our system, but he is not entitled to continue to wield influence over national policy.” Menendez and wife Nadine were indicted on Friday for using his position to aid the authoritarian government of Egypt and also to pressure federal prosecutors to drop a case against a friend. The three-count indictment lists a series of bribes they were paid by three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the corrupt acts—gold bars, a luxury car, and cash.

It is the second indictment on bribery charges for Menendez—and the second time he has had to relinquish his post as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel. He regained the leadership spot in 2018 after the case ended with a deadlocked jury. Menendez was defiant after Friday’s indictment, saying in a statement Friday evening that “I am not going anywhere.” Authorities who searched Menendez’s home last year found more than $100,000 worth of gold bars, as well as over $480,000 in cash—much of it hidden in closets, clothing, and a safe, prosecutors say. The indictment includes photos of cash stuffed in envelopes in jackets bearing Menendez’s name and of a luxury car that prosecutors say was given to the couple as a bribe from the businessmen.

There calls for Menendez to resign….but mostly from younger Congress people….some of the older and entrenched members think he should stay put.

Add Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the list of politicians who think Sen. Bob Menendez needs to resign due to his indictment on corruption charges. The Democratic representative said the charges against Menendez, including allegations that he accepted bribes including a Mercedes-Benz, are “very serious,” the Guardian reports. “Consistency matters. It shouldn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat,” she said, adding that the allegations “involve the nature of not just his but all of our seats in Congress.” Meanwhile, while Sen. John Fetterman and several Democrats in Menendez’s home state of New Jersey say their fellow Dem should step down, NBC News reports other Democrat senators have not been so quick to join that chorus:

  • Chris Murphy: “No senators should be trading on their position in order to enrich themselves,” he said Sunday on MSNBC. “It is hard for me to believe that Sen. Menendez can be effective in his job given these allegations, but I think I want to get back and talk to my colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee before I recommend a path forward for Sen. Menendez.”
  • Mark Kelly: “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said on CBS Sunday, noting that Menendez stepping down as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee is “a serious step.” Kelly continued, “I think Sen. Menendez is going to have to think long and hard about the cloud that’s going to hang over his service in the United State Senate. He’s got to figure out whether he can adequately serve the people of New Jersey.”
  • Dick Durbin: “In terms of resignation, that’s a decision to be made by Sen. Menendez and the people of New Jersey,” he said on CNN Sunday. “The person who is accused is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and it’s the responsibility of the government to prove that case. I have said that about Donald Trump. I will say the same thing about Bob Menendez.”

Personally he should resign with a hint of corruption and let the Congress get on with business it really does not need another diversion at this time.

I say if guilty get the slug out of government and tighten the noose around other forms of corruption as well….a good place to start would be SCOTUS.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

I Hate The Word ‘Progressive’

Let me explain.

I hate it when a politician or for that matter the media use the word to describe a democrat.

There is nothing progressive about the Dems….the closest there is is Bernie and the ‘Squad’ but they are a mere reflection of true progressivism.

Of course these days we change the definition of words to put ourselves in a more favorable light.

For those no sure what I am going on about….I wrote about it earlier….

What Is A Progressive (Redux)

Like I said there are some that are holding some progressive ideas…but bow to political pressure to tow the line….

Maybe the so-called progressives should read some and learn some progressive history so they can finally get it right.

“Medicare for All.” “The Green New Deal.” Calls to overhaul the Supreme Court and replace the Electoral College. Many activists today are heralding a new progressive movement—a successor to the vibrant reform coalition that swept both major political parties in the early years of the 20th century.

There’s more than a little truth to this comparison. America’s current reality—marked by rising income inequality, the concentration of political and economic power and changing patterns of work and leisure—bears uncanny similarity to conditions that produced a burst of reform activity more than 120 years ago, including measures to improve urban health and safety standards, ameliorate labor conditions and introduce more efficiency and transparency in state and local government.

But if contemporary progressives aspire to drive the same degree of change as the progressive movement of the early 20th century, they might take a cue from their ideological forebears.

Many of today’s progressives define their movement by commitment to a specific menu of policies, and those who don’t share this very specific set of goals are easily read out of the progressive movement, typecast as “neoliberals” or “corporate liberals.” This kind of rigidity is something that their progressive forerunners never exhibited. The progressive movement of the early 1900s was successful precisely because it was flexible and incorporated a wide range of views—so much so that the movement defies easy definition.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/01/progressives-history-227037/

This is just a suggestion that will go unrealized….money kills all great ideas….and our government is all about the cash and not so much the people.

As a Progressive I would like to see Progressives that do not bow to pressure or the almighty dollar….but that too will go unrealized.

True Progressives need their own party.   Period!

And then others will have more people to blame their loss on….it has nothing to do with crappy candidates and this myth of a ‘spoiler’ vote.

Keep reading for I will be posting on this ‘spoiler’ myth in the coming weeks.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What Do We Want For 2024

We are just weeks away from the unofficial end of Summer and the official start of the 2024 campaigns.

Biden will run in 2024 for re-election….but can he win?

Good question right?

According to the poll we Americans are not so thrilled with the idea of Biden running for re-election.

A majority of Democrats now think one term is plenty for President Biden, despite his insistence that he plans to seek reelection in 2024, the AP reports. That’s according to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows just 37% of Democrats say they want him to seek a second term, down from 52% in the weeks before last year’s midterm elections. While Biden has trumpeted his legislative victories and ability to govern, the poll suggests relatively few US adults give him high marks on either. Follow-up interviews with poll respondents suggest that many believe the 80-year-old’s age is a liability, with people focused on his coughing, his gait, his gaffes, and the possibility that the world’s most stressful job would be better suited for someone younger.

Overall, 41% approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, the poll shows, similar to ratings at the end of last year. A majority of Democrats still approve of the job Biden is doing as president, yet their appetite for a reelection campaign has slipped despite his electoral track record. Only 22% of US adults overall say he should run again, down from 29% who said so before last year’s midterm elections. The decline among Democrats saying Biden should run again for president appears concentrated among younger people. Among Democrats age 45 and over, 49% say Biden should run for reelection, nearly as many as the 58% who said that in October. But among those under age 45, 23% now say he should run for reelection, after 45% said that before the midterms. More from the poll here.

The problem is most Dems think Biden is too old…..

Americans actually agree on something in this time of discord: Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president in a second term. Only a few years his junior, Donald Trump raises strikingly less concern about his age. But they have plenty of other problems with Trump, who at least for now far outdistances his rivals for the GOP nomination despite his criminal indictments. Never mind his advanced years—if anything, some say, the 77-year-old ought to grow up. A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds much of the public oddly united in sizing up the one trait Biden cannot change:

  • Biden: In the poll, fully 77% said the 80-year-old Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. Not only do 89% of Republicans say that, so do 69% of Democrats. That view is held across age groups, not just by young people, though older Democrats specifically are more supportive of his 2024 bid.
  • Trump: In contrast, about half of US adults say Trump is too old for the office, and here the familiar partisan divide emerges—Democrats are far more likely to disqualify Trump by age than are Republicans.
  • Age ceiling? About two-thirds of US adults back an age ceiling on candidates for president and Congress, and a mandatory retirement age for justices. Specifically, 67% favor requiring Supreme Court justices to retire by a certain age, 68% support age ceilings for candidates for House and Senate, and 66% support age ceilings for candidates for president.
  • Confused’: The AP-NORC survey went beyond posing questions and presenting choices. It also had a word association exercise, asking people to offer the first word or phrase that comes to mind at the mention of each man. In those visceral responses, 26% mentioned Biden’s age, and an additional 15% used words such as “slow” or “confused.” One Republican thought of “potato.” Among Democrats, Biden’s age was mentioned upfront by 28%. They preferred references to his age over terms like “president,” “leader,” “strong,” or “capable.” One who approves of his performance nevertheless called him “senile.”
  • ‘Crooked’: Only 3% in the survey came up with “confused” as the first descriptor for Trump, and a mere 1% used “old” or the like. Instead, the top words were those like “corrupt” or “crooked” (15%), “bad,” and other generally negative terms (11%), including words such as “liar” and “dishonest” (8%), along with “good” and other generally positive comments (8%).
  • The poll of 1,165 adults was conducted Aug. 10-14, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the US population. The margin of error is 3.8 percentage points.

For me I want to support someone else….Biden is too conservative for my vote…..we already have enough spineless conservs….this country needs someone with real vision as president….not a bunch of idle promises that sound good but never make it into policy.

A recent report is that young voters are leaning more progressive…..which some think will aid Biden in his bid for re-election….

A pollster at Harvard University pointed to a persistent sense of precarity in the lives of young voters as a key reason behind new data that shows Americans aged 18-29 have significantly more progressive views than young people did even five years ago.

Data analyzed by the Harvard Youth Poll, which releases survey results focused on young voters every spring, found that a clear majority take a progressive outlook on what John Della Volpe, director of the poll, called the “big four” political issues that respondents are asked about: LGBTQ+ rights, economic inequality, climate action, and gun violence.

Sixty-two percent of voters between 18-29 (those born between 1994 and 2005) believe the federal government should provide residents with basic necessities. Just 52% believed the same in 2018, and only 44% did a decade ago.

Fifty-four percent say they reject the idea that same-sex relationships and marriage equality are morally wrong, and 63% support stronger restrictions on access to guns—having come of age in an era that saw gun violence overtake vehicle accidents as the leading killer of children in the U.S. and witnessed carnage in Newtown, Connecticut; Uvalde, Texas; Las Vegas; Parkland, Florida; and dozens of other places in recent years.

https://www.rawstory.com/young-voters-progressive/

If this is a true survey then a true progressive candidate could scuttle Biden….and since young voters have not been the best voters around that question should be….will they actually vote?  (Not to worry I have lots to say about voting in 2024 all to be made available here on IST)

Once again I need to point out that the Democratic Party is not that ‘progressive’….it straddles the center.

The political center is not a safe place for average Americans….they are assaulted on every side no matter which spineless party takes power.

Time for the American people to demand and get action not more promises.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Demobilizing The Left

I have been accused of being a contrarian….and like all people that are vocal and in opposition to any given subject…..just remember the 1st amendment…..

In the US, we proudly point to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that was adopted in 1791:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

We believe that our freedom of speech and of the press are two of the ways the US differs from more dictatorial nations such as Germany under the Nazis and the former Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, these freedoms are not as absolute as they sound. As Howard Zinn pointed out in an excellent piece that should be read by all, we cannot rely on this amendment to protect our freedoms of speech or press. For example, just seven years after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the John Adams administration thought that war with France was a strong possibility. Congress then passed the Alien and Sedition Acts that explicitly abridged these freedoms. The Sedition Act made it a crime for American citizens to “print, utter, or publish…any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the government. Fortunately, the Sedition Act expired in 1801.

Suppression of Contrarian Voices

I will be honest…..I have been a Left leaning voter since 1980……and since those days I have watched the Democratic Party using every effort to demobilize the Left….until we got candidates that were nothing more than sycophants of millionaires and billionaires…the likes of Bill Clinton onward.

The Dems are scared to death of the Left candidates and will pull no punches to get them out of nay running successfully.

And yet Dem candidates will running as a Left leaning Progressive and they are nothing of the sorts….and Dems have a long and checkered history of lying and back stabbing any challenge to their center leaning sycophants…..

Just two years ago, the sky was the limit for progressives: Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and a Sanders’ candidacy for president. There was serious talk of forgiving student debt, of free community college, paid parental leave, finally lowering the costs of essential medicines and more. Now, the best progressives can muster is primarying the treacherous, corporate, bought-and-paid for Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema. What a difference a couple of years make!

This was all entirely predictable. The Democratic party has mainly functioned since the 1930s to demobilize left movements, and these latest weren’t even movements. (Certainly thin soup compared to the militant communism FDR set out to dilute.) These were platforms in a candidacy. Platforms that the cautious, billionaire-sycophant likes of Barack Obama had no intention of ever seeing signed into law – so he coordinated the withdrawal of all other Dem presidential candidates at a critical juncture to boost Biden over Sanders.

Another reason for this repulsive electoral jujitsu was that Obama doubtless believed Biden not Sanders was the only one who could defeat Trump. But he did not take the long view. Obama didn’t look past 2020. Had Sanders won, and got a few executive orders like forgiving student debt under his belt, we wouldn’t be looking at a possible fascist catastrophe in 2024. These halcyon mid-election cycle days would not feel so much like a Weimar interregnum.

The Left Demobilized: the Usual Suspects Are To Blame

Recent events in this country have illustrated that there is a Far Right Party (GOP) and a conservative party (Dems)….the Left has been totally marginalized…..without the Left there is NO progress and our recent history has proven this point on so many levels (all of which I have covered endlessly…to no avail)….

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Grow Your Own

Another hot Sunday and my search for something akin to FYI was in vain so this is my next best thing.

For the last couple of decades I have had a small garden to grow tomatoes, greens, carrots, radish, cucumbers…and lots of fruit trees….tangerines, satsumas, plums and figs and a few blueberry plants…..nothing to write home about but it keeps us in fresh grown food for several months….always a welcome treat.

This year because of a very mild winter the field mouse population has exploded and they in turn look to me for their food supply….my two pups do a find job of protecting the garden but they can only work so fast….I am thinking of training them to use pellet rifles.

I have a problem with all the GMO stuff….I am old so I remember what a fresh peach, tomato, plum, etc should taste like and the ‘fresh’ stuff in grocery stores does not come close.

Stop all this whining and get to the point, right?

I wish something could be done to change all that….well sports fans one Dem is trying and has been for 26 years…

Each year for the last 26 years – nearly his entire tenure in the US Congress – Earl Blumenauer has advocated for a law that would utterly transform US agriculture.

Nearly every time, though, his proposals have been shut down. Even so, he persists.

Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, wants to see a version of US agriculture that centers people, animals and the environment, rather than the large-scale, energy-intensive commodity crop farms that currently receive billions of dollars in subsidies. In effect, he has a completely different vision for how 40% of the country’s land looks and works.

“Every year is an uphill battle. We’re up against entrenched, wealthy, strong interests,” said Blumenauer, known for his signature bowtie, circular glasses and bicycle enamel pin. He’s the spitting image of a progressive environmentalist and doesn’t shy from discussing some of agriculture’s most divisive issues.

But he remains optimistic and steadfast in his vision for the American food system. Now more than ever, he feels momentum and support surrounding the future of farming and food production. People care about where their food comes from and what kind of impact their food is having on the climate, he says.

Blumenauer’s newest plan, the Food and Farm Act, was introduced earlier this year, as an alternative to the farm bill – the package of food and agricultural policies passed every five years that is up for renewal this fall. His proposal would redirect billions of dollars away from subsidies for commodity farms towards programs that support small farmers, climate-friendly agriculture and increasing healthy food access.

The bill also prioritizes food waste management and animal welfare – areas that have been completely neglected by previous iterations of the farm bill.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/26/earl-blumenauer-agriculture-farm-bill-congress

All Dems should step away from their paymasters at Big Agri and get on board with a bill that makes sense.

It is a shame that I learned of this from a UK newspaper…apparently agribusiness has its claws in the MSM as well as Congress.

We all should be in support of this effort for it makes a lot of sense (maybe that is why it is not popular).

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Enjoy your Sunday and as always be well and be safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Dems Have Become The Party Of War

For decades the GOP was the party of strong defense (war)…..but these days  both parties serve the War Department…..

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/analysis-both-parties-always-serve-the-military-industrial-complex/

For years the Dems were the party that tried and failed to lessen our dependence on war but those days are gone….they now have become the warmongers that I despise.

The Democrats position themselves as the party of virtue, cloaking their support for the war industry in moral language stretching back to Korea and Vietnam, when President Ngo Dinh Diem was as lionized as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. All the wars they support and fund are “good” wars. All the enemies they fight, the latest being Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, are incarnations of evil. The photo of a beaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris holding up a signed Ukrainian battle flag behind Zelensky as he addressed Congress was another example of the Democratic Party’s abject subservience to the war machine.

The Democrats, especially with the presidency of Bill Clinton, became shills not only for corporate America but for the weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon. No weapons system is too costly. No war, no matter how disastrous, goes unfunded. No military budget is too big, including the $858 billion in military spending allocated for the current fiscal year, an increase of $45 billion above what the Biden administration requested.

The historian Arnold Toynbee cited unchecked militarism as the fatal disease of empires,arguing that they ultimately commit suicide.

There once was a wing of the Democratic Party that questioned and stood up to the war industry: Senators J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire and House member Dennis Kucinich. But that opposition evaporated along with the antiwar movement. When 30 members of the party’s progressive caucus recently issued a call for Biden to negotiate with Putin, they were forced by the party leadership and a warmongering media to back down and rescind their letter. Not that any of them, with the exception of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have voted against the billions of dollars in weaponry sent to Ukraine or the bloated military budget. Rashida Tlaib voted present.

The opposition to the perpetual funding of the war in Ukraine has come primarily from Republicans, 11 in the Senate and 57 in the House, several, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, unhinged conspiracy theorists. Only nine Republicans in the House joined the Democrats in supporting the $1.7 trillion spending bill needed to prevent the government from shutting down, which included approval of $847 billion for the military — the total is boosted to $858 billion when factoring in accounts that don’t fall under the Armed Services committees’ jurisdiction. In the Senate, 29 Republicans opposed the spending bill. The Democrats, including nearly all 100 members of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, lined up dutifully for endless war.

https://cgs-bd.com/article/10415/The-Democrats-are-Now-The-War-Party

There is a election on the horizon and so far there is little in both parties that appeals to my principles.

I will probably be one of those voters that gets the  blame for whoever losses the vote…..but that is nothing new for me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

 

Disturbing News About The 06 January Riot

Slowly but slowly some of the defendants are getting their time in jail and others are getting fined….all that is good news but some of the news is disturbing on another front.

You know how the Dems are going on about the protest and yet not all Dems think it was a bad idea.

More than a quarter of Republicans now approve of the Capitol riot, according to a new poll—and, puzzlingly, almost a fifth of Democrats agree. “Do you approve or disapprove of the Trump supporters taking over the Capitol building in Washington, DC on January 6th, 2021 to stop Congressional proceedings?” the Economist/YouGov poll asked 1,500 American adults, Some 27% of Republicans, and 19% of Democrats, said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” approve. The poll also found that 54% of Republicans believe “people participated in a legitimate public discourse” on Jan. 6, compared to 21% of Democrats, the Hill reports.

Some 71% of Democrats, and 27% of Republicans thought “people participated in a violent insurrection” was a more fitting description of the day’s events. Among Democrats, 90% thought former President Trump had at least some responsibility for the riot, while 43% of Republicans—and 52% of Trump supporters—thought he had none whatsoever. The poll also found that 42% of Americans, including 61% of Republicans, approved of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to release tens of thousands of hours of Jan. 6 footage to Tucker Carlson, the Guardian reports.

More result from the poll….Biden, Ukraine, etc….

The poll was taken between March 11 and March 14. Some 34% of respondents, including 63% of Republicans, said they wanted Trump to run for president in 2024. Only 26%, including 45% of Democrats, wanted President Biden to seek a second term. The numerous other issues pollsters addressed included aid for Ukraine. Some 77% supported sending the country food and medical assistance, 53% supporting sending tanks, 44% were in favor of sending fighter jets, and 26% were in favor of sending US troops.

These results are very disturbing….19% of the Dems agreed with 06 January riot….seriously?

Those are not Dems they are probably so-called ‘centrist’ that think the center is the place to be.

I have been saying that Dens were not much better than the GOP….this does not change my mind in the least.

Does anyone else see a disturbing issue here?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Party Of War

Yes I am antiwar so I keep informing my readers about the wars we start and fight and seldom finish.

I remember the days when the GOP was the party of war….I protested against their many wars and their many mash-ups to war…..but recently the GOP is not the only party of war….the Dems and liberals are as much of a warmonger as their counterparts.

a remarkable column by Stephen Kinzer appeared in the Boston Globe. It was headlined: “Republicans Return To Their Roots As The Antiwar Party.”

More significantly, the subheading ran: “Since the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that.” It began:

“With Americans now engulfed in passion for Ukraine, it wasn’t surprising that President Biden proposed sending $33 billion worth of weaponry and other aid to Ukraine’s beleaguered military. Nor was it surprising that Congress raised the number to $40 billion, or that both the Senate and House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor. Hidden within that lopsided vote, though, was a shocker: Every single “no” vote – 11 in the Senate and 57 in the House – came from a Republican.

“Since the Vietnam era, Americans have come to expect antiwar rhetoric from liberal Democrats. Cancel that. This month’s votes in Washington signal a dramatic role reversal. Suddenly it is conservative Republicans who oppose US involvement in foreign wars.”

Strikingly not only did the “conservative” Democrats vote for the $40 billion that included more weapons of death and destruction for Joe Biden’s cruel proxy war against Russia to the last Ukrainian. All the “progressives” did so, including AOC and The Squad, Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee and all the rest. It was a clean sweep.

The Democratic Party, Now the Leading Party of War

The truly sad part is that the sop-called progressives, The Squad, are just as pro-war as any GOPer…did lobbyists and their massive cash reserves change minds?

Is there another reason the ‘liberals’ have become the party of war?

Senator Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser Matt Duss (an alumnus of the Saudi- and UAE- funded Center for American Progress) published a widely discussed essay in The New Republic in which he declared that American liberals and progressives need to prioritize expressions of “solidarity” with Ukraine over policies that might put an end to the bloodshed.

In this Duss, a reliable weathervane of liberal opinion, is hardly alone among liberal commentators and policy practitioners, after all, Democrats on the Hill unanimously voted for each of President Biden’s billion dollar aid packages to Ukraine.

What accounts for the enthusiasm for war in Eastern Europe against Russia among American liberals?

James W. Carden: What Accounts For the War Lust Among American Liberals?

The Squad has had some excellent policies to follow….but this seems to be an eye to re-election and not keeping the US from engaging in war after war that benefits no one but the industry.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Pelosi Replacement

The big news last week was that long-time Dem leader would be stepping down and making room for younger leadership…..

Rep. Hakeem Jefferies is being served up as the new Dem leader in the House.

As Nancy Pelosi steps down from her leadership post among House Democrats, she promises not to be a meddling “mother-in-law in the kitchen” as a new generation takes over, per the Daily Beast. And while her successor as party leader in the chamber has not been officially chosen, pretty much everyone is betting it will be Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York City, currently chair of the House Democratic Caucus. Jeffries formally announced his bid to replace Pelosi on Friday, reports NBC News. Details:

  • A first: Jeffries would become the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in the House or Senate, per the Washington Post.
  • New generation: Jeffries is 52 and expected lieutenants Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California are 59 and 43. They would replace Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn—who are all in their 80s—as the top three House Democrats.
  • Self-described: “I’m a Black progressive Democrat concerned with addressing racial and social and economic injustice with the fierce urgency of now,” Jeffries told the Atlantic last year in a profile. But he added, “There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism.” Elaborating on that distinction: “Black progressives do tend to tackle issues first and foremost with an understanding that systemic racism has been in the soil of America for over 400 years,” he said. “Hard-left progressives tend to view the defining problem in America as one that is anchored in class.”
  • But how progressive is he? At New York, Zak Cheney-Rice dubs Jeffries “Speaker of the Establishment,” and it’s not a compliment. Jeffries has seen a “rapid ascent up the party’s ranks secured by endearing himself to its elders and siding with longtime incumbents and party leaders even as they’ve grown out of touch with their constituents,” writes Cheney-Rice. “Much will be made of the historic nature of his promotion and the change it appears to signify. But for the party Establishment, the benefit of this generational change appears to be stasis.”
  • Bio: Jeffries is a lawyer and a Brooklyn native who has been in the House since 2013, per the BBC. The Post notes that he was once seen as an anti-establishment figure when the “Brooklyn Democratic machine” redrew districts to “stifle” Jeffries’ political ascent. The tactic was featured in the 2010 documentary Gerrymandering. Since then, however, he “has forged relationships with Democratic establishment figures in Washington while navigating the ascending left in his backyard.” The latter is a reference to figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
  • Famous constituent: During the Senate impeachment hearing of former President Trump, Jeffries made headlines by quoting a famous lyric of the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. “And if you don’t know, now you know.” See the video at CBS News. The rapper, real name Christopher Wallace, was from Jeffries’ district, and Jeffries previously praised him on the House floor as the “classic embodiment of the American dream,” per the BBC.

I agree that the Dems have needed new leadership for decades…..good to see it is finally coming to a head…..but I am not certain in these days when special interests the Dems are no better than the GOP as far as bought ideology.

Do you think change is coming?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What Can We Expect From The New Congress?

To begin a cartoon by Pat Bagley….

Let the Games Begin | Pat Bagley

2023 will give this country a new Congress and a divided Congress….but what can we expect from this division?

With Republicans gaining control of the House by the narrowest of majorities and Democrats retaining control of the Senate, the midterm elections have sent the United States back to a divided Congress.

This may put pressure on obstinate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to compromise so Congress can get a few things passed before the end of the year — namely abortion protections and voting rights, as they’ve been supportive of efforts to codify same-sex marriage protections — while Democrats still lead both houses, says Sunshine Hillygus, political science professor at Duke University.

Come January, Hillygus predicts that not many bills will get passed. “I don’t see a lot of room for forward progress.”

“It’s not just a matter of a stalemate,” she says, explaining that the presidential campaigns of 2024 are starting, and she expects that lawmakers in Congress will be focused on helping their party win favor. “This is why you’re likely to see a Republican House focus on investigating the Biden administration. It’s why you might see a lot of bills get proposed that actually have no shot of actually ever being passed — it becomes an issue of signaling and trying to keep particular issues on the agenda.”

https://people.com/politics/divided-congress-performative-gridlock/

In other words we can expect nothing of substance coming out of the Congress in 2023…headline grabbing bullsh*t….more theater….more antics…..more drama with no basis.

Many of us have many things to be thankful for during this season….but a new Congress will not be one of those things.

Whatcha think?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”