Tag: Leadership

Schumer Must Go

It is no secret that I have detested the Dem leadership in Congress for a very long time….I have been calling for them to be replaced with someone with some balls.

Now there are many others that are calling for the same action.

A coalition of peace groups on Wednesday launched a new national campaign calling for the top Democrats in Congress—Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—to resign from their leadership roles, citing their failure to sufficiently fight back “against a war-crazed Trump administration.”

The coalition, which includes Peace Action and RootsAction, launched a petition declaring that it is “time for congressional Democrats to replace Schumer and Jeffries with leaders who are willing and able to challenge the runaway militarism that has dragged our country into launching yet another insanely destructive war,” this time against Iran.

“Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries have not acted to prevent war on Venezuela or the current war on Iran,” the petition reads. “They worked to delay a vote on Iran until after the war had started, while failing to clearly oppose it before or after the launch of the war. Schumer and Jeffries have shown that they cannot be trusted to prevent more wars, more threats of wars, or the transfer of another half a trillion dollars a year into the war machine.”

Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action—the largest grassroots peace network in the US—said in a statement that he doubts “at this point whether many people look to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries for ‘leadership’ in Congress, but we would settle for them getting with the program and representing their base, and the majority of Americans, who want them to stand strongly against Trump’s illegal wars and domestic terror campaigns against the American people.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/schumer-jeffries-step-down-iran

Then just yesterday more news about Schumer….

Chuck Schumer may not be on the ballot this fall, but the Wall Street Journal reports that his political future is very much in play. Behind closed doors, a growing bloc of Senate Democrats and progressive activists is venting about the 75-year-old minority leader and quietly gaming out what it would take to push him aside after November, according to more than four dozen lawmakers, aides, strategists, and donors interviewed. Among those privately dissatisfied: Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tina Smith, and Chris Murphy, part of an informal progressive “Fight Club” that chats on Signal and believes Schumer is tilting too hard toward centrist candidates in key Senate races.

The frustration stems from several fronts: Schumer’s handling of last year’s lengthy government shutdown, his tightly held decision-making style that some colleagues say leaves them in the dark, and positions—like robust support for Israel—that critics view as out of step with Democratic voters. Some donors are pushing what they jokingly call the “chuck Chuck movement,” and say his image is dragging on fundraising. Yet Schumer still has influential defenders, including Sen. Brian Schatz, widely seen as his preferred eventual successor, and several other Democrats who credit him with recruiting a strong 2026 slate. Progressives, meanwhile, are floating alternatives such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen or Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, even as both signal they’re not actively seeking the job.

Schumer, for his part, says grumbling “goes with the territory,” calls his backing “deep and strong,” and maintains he’s focused solely on winning back the Senate, not on whether he’ll seek to remain leader afterward. The Hill notes that Murphy was asked on Meet the Press over the weekend about emerging reports of dissatisfaction, and he didn’t answer directly when asked if he wanted to replace Schumer. Instead, he acknowledged that Schumer has a “tough job” but declined to answer directly again when pressed by host Kristen Welker.

I like this news a lot….the progressives floated to replace Schumer are not the ones I would choose but for now if we can get rid of the spineless fool so much the better.

Anyone care to weigh in?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Take Me To Your Leader

After their catastrophic loss to Trump the Dems have promised a new way forward and regain the voters confidence….and supposedly this way is by picking a new leader of the Party, the DNC…

The Dems now have a new leader…..

Democrats, looking for a path back to power in Washington, have a new national chair to lead the effort. Ken Martin, the head of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, won on the first ballot at a Democratic National Committee meeting on Saturday, NPR reports, turning back competitive bids by Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. In his acceptance speech, Martin promised a unified party leadership. “We have one team, one team, the Democratic Party. We have one fight, one fight,” he said. “The fight’s not in here.”

The campaign focused on the DNC’s internal mechanisms more than the election losses in November, per the New York Times. The body helps set the party’s tone and goals as it supports down-ballot candidates between presidential elections in addition to building an operation for the eventual presidential nominee. In campaigning for the post, Martin, 51, told DNC members he’ll pay more attention to their concerns than past chairs have. Although the party may seem to face a tough road back, the new chair steps into an organization that’s raised record amounts of money and made record investments in data and organizing resources, per NPR, which has made it more integrated with state and local party operations.

With former President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris moving on, and few other Democrats commanding much attention, the election gives party regulars somebody to rally around, per the Hill. In his speech Saturday, Martin acknowledged the seven people he defeated for the job. “It is my guarantee to each of you that we’re going to take the great ideas from all the candidates in this race,” he said.

So far this new leader sounds a lot like past leaders…..the rhetoric is the same as always after a loss.

But who is the guy?

Wellstone, the progressive senator from Minnesota who died in a 2002 plane crash, just days after casting a courageous vote opposing President George W. Bush’s rush to war in Iraq, mounted the sort of economic populist campaigns that top Democrats now all seem to agree they need to run. He practiced year-round organizing; built multiracial, multiethnic coalitions; explicitly rejected corporate influence and focused on appealing to working-class people; always campaigned in rural areas; toppled a Republican incumbent by running a grassroots campaign out of the back of a beat-up bus; and mounted reelection bids that emphasized his progressive values rather than the talking points favored by major donors and party consultants.

…

What’s missing now in too much of our politics, says Martin, is that sort of “authentic, empathetic leadership that understood struggle and understood that everyone, regardless of whether they live in a rural community, or an urban community, or anywhere in between, needs to have some hope that their lives would be better.”

Martin, who is also a former union organizer, is not alone in this view. The notion that a values-based politics that unites urban and rural voters might be the answer for Democrats is suddenly in vogue with senators, governors, and all of Martin’s fellow candidates for DNC chair.

The bottom line for Democrats, says Martin, is that “if we continue to slide with big parts of our coalition, we’re going to be in a perpetual minority.”

As DNC chair, Martin recognizes that a core part of his job would be to raise the money to fund permanent campaigns in 50 states and to take on a Republican Party that, under Trump, is seizing every opportunity to gain financial and structural advantages. But, like Wellstone, he is wary of a politics that is so focused on fundraising that it loses sight of basic values.

(thenation.com)

Martin hit a lot of good notes but many other before him have hit the same ones.

Is he a true progressive?

I will withhold my judgement until he has time to settle into his leadership role and see if he is a progressive or will just buckle under to the big cash donors like so many others have done.

For now the Dems have a new leader but will he be the savior of a dying party?

thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Man In Charge

Assad is gone and the rebels are in control of the capital and most of the country….and now the watch has begun to see how all this plays out for the Syrians and the rest of the world.

For now it appears the head of the rebel faction is in charge…..and who is that?

It remains unclear who will be the next leader of Syria now that Bashar al-Assad is gone, but one man is clearly positioning himself for the role: Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of the main military faction behind the push to oust Assad. However, in a move that speaks volumes about his desire to present a more moderate image, al-Golani has shed that military nom-de-guerre and is now going by his given name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, reports Reuters. Coverage:

  • “By far, he’s the most important player on the ground in Syria,” Jerome Drevon, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, tells the New York Times. The 42-year-old al-Sharaa runs Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a militant group once affiliated with al-Qaeda before a split several years ago.
  • His shift: When al-Sharaa gave his first interviews a decade ago, he did so in full military garb, notes the AP. Over the years, he has switched to a suit and tie and begun calling for tolerance of different religious beliefs. It’s a big departure from the days when he called for Syria to be ruled by sharia law. “He’s retooled, he’s refashioned, made new allies, and come with his own charm offensive,” another regional expert tells Reuters.
  • Bio, US view: Al-Sharaa was born in Saudi Arabia, but his parents were Syrian exiles, and the family returned there in the 1980s. He went across the border to Iraq in 2003 to fight with al-Qaeda against the US, reports Al Jazeera. He spent about five years in a US military prison before returning to Syria. The US still considers him a terrorist—and still has a $10 million bounty on his head. The US also considers HTS a terrorist organization.
  • The question: Analysts are watching to see if al-Sharaa will continue to espouse—and perhaps enact—more moderate policies amid Syria’s current leadership void. “In a way, this is his Zelensky moment,” says analyst Drevon, referring to the leader of Ukraine. “Zelensky was criticized before the war in Ukraine, and then he became a statesman. The question is can (al-Sharaa) make the same transformation.”

Like I have already said…..the road ahead is a tough one for the country and is full of chaos waiting to take hold and diminish the rewards for free the Syrian people from the vice grip of Assad.

So how does it look for Syria?

Syria’s prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers were back at work after rebels overthrew President Bashar Assad, but some state workers failed to return to their jobs, and a United Nations official said the country’s public sector had come “to a complete and abrupt halt.” Meanwhile, streams of refugees crossed back into Syria from neighboring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future and looking for relatives who disappeared during Assad’s brutal rule.

  • There were signs of the difficulties ahead for the rebel alliance now in control of much of the country, the AP reports. The alliance is led by a former senior al-Qaeda militant who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and has promised representative government and religious tolerance. The rebel command said Monday it would not tell women how to dress. “It is strictly forbidden to interfere with women’s dress or impose any request related to their clothing or appearance, including requests for modesty,” the command said in a statement on social media.
  • Nearly two days after rebels entered the capital, some key government services had shut down after state workers ignored calls to go back to their jobs, the UN official said, causing issues at airports and borders and slowing the flow of humanitarian aid. “This is a country that has had one government for 53 years and then suddenly all of those who have been demonized by the public media are now in charge in the nation’s capital,” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria Adam Abdelmoula Abdelmoula told the AP. “I think it will take a couple of days and a lot of assurance on the part of the armed groups for these people to return to work again.”
  • Rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was long known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, also met for the first time with Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Jalali, who stayed in Syria when Assad fled. “You will see there are skills” among the rebels, al-Sharaa said in a video shared on a rebel messaging channel.
  • Israel said it carried out airstrikes on suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets to keep them from falling into the hands of extremists. Israel has also seized a buffer zone inside Syria after Syrian troops withdrew. “The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters Monday.
  • Jalali, the prime minister, has sought to project normalcy since Assad fled. “We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth,” he told Sky News Arabia TV on Monday, saying the security situation had already improved from the day before. At the court of Justice in Damascus, which was stormed by the rebels to free detainees, Judge Khitam Haddad, an aide to the justice minister in the outgoing government, said Sunday that judges were ready to resume work quickly.
  • European countries including Germany and France said Monday that they plan to freeze all pending asylum requests from Syrians, Le Monde reports. Turkey, meanwhile, opened a border crossing to facilitate the return of refugees.

Then there is the fact that HST is considered a terrorist group….will that change?

The US is considering removing the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the list of US-designated terror organizations after the group led the offensive that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The Washington Post reported that US officials are in contact with HTS and other groups involved in the offensive. One US official said the Biden administration was doing a “real-time assessment” on whether or not HTS should be removed from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.

POLITICO reported there is a “furious debate” among US officials about the issue. “There is a huge scramble to see if, and how, and when we can delist HTS,” one official said.

(antiwar.com)

Another thing to keep in mind….the US has approximately 900 troops in Syria….and their fate could be bad if things do not pan out as people want….keep in mind what happened in Libya and the consequences of deposing Qaddafi.

This situation will be more important as the swearing in day gets closer.

I will be watching and writing….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

One Living–Another Dead

Awhile back there were several reports that the leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, had been killed….and the peasants dance…..now someone has rained on that parade….

A top Kurdish counter-terrorism official said on Monday he was 99 percent sure that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was alive and located south of the Syrian city of Raqqa, after reports that he had been killed.

“Baghdadi is definitely alive. He is not dead. We have information that he is alive. We believe 99 percent he is alive,” Lahur Talabany told Reuters in an interview.

Source: Exclusive: Islamic State leader Baghdadi almost certainly alive – Kurdish security official

I question since this came from the Kurds is it just a story to keep the money and arms flowing before the “independence” referendum in September?

This would not be the first time a terrorist leader was declared dead and not being so…..

Then far miles away in Afghanistan….

The head of ISIL in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed, was killed in an attack on his headquarters in Kunar province earlier this week, the Pentagon said on Friday.

Spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement on Friday that other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) were killed in the raid on Tuesday.

“US forces killed Abu Sayed, the emir of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) – in a strike on the group’s headquarters in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, July 11,” White said in the statement, referring to ISIL’s other acronym.

Source: ISIL leader in Afghanistan ‘killed in US raid’ | ISIS News | Al Jazeera

Once again it is…..Another he said….they said…..

Many “leaders” over the years have been pronounced dead…only to re-appear healthier than ever…..

Fearless Leader, Come On Down!

Recently the Russians issued a statement that they had killed the leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, in an airstrike in Raqaa Syria…..they have said they are 90% sure that he has been killed.

But first………

The 2003 American invasion of Iraq, which came not long after the invasion of Afghanistan, proved to be highly controversial, not only for the rationale behind the invasion (Saddam Hussein and his putative support of 9/11 and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction) but for how the war itself and the governing of the country were conducted. On May 11, 2003, President George W. Bush appointed L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer as the Presidential Envoy to Iraq and then the top civilian administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Shortly thereafter, two of the CPA’s most notable decrees entered into force, on May 16, 2003 and May 23, respectively:  CPA Order Number 1 , which banned the Ba’ath party in all forms, a process otherwise known as de-Baathification; and CPA Order Number 2, which dismantled the Iraqi army.

The US got rid of the Iraqi army and its generals….then some question this decision…..

The latter decision was sharply criticized in hindsight, as many observers blame it for fueling the insurgency that would plague the country to this day. Bremer defends the decision by noting that most of the Iraqi army had been brutalized under Saddam and had no desire to continue serving if given the chance. Therefore, in the Pentagon’s terminology, the Iraqi army “self-demobilized.

To this day that one decision haunts the country of Iraq…..

Source: Iraq’s de-Baathification still haunts the country – Al Jazeera English

About here there will be some that are questioning my motivation for this post….and I will clear it all up…..

If Baghdadi is truly dead and there seems to be no successor waiting in the wings then analyst think that there will emerge an Iraqi general from Saddam’s day to take over the leadership of the group.

Source: If Baghdadi is dead, next IS leader likely to be Saddam-era officer – Iraqi News

To me it makes perfect sense….ISIS is losing on almost all fronts if there is a way to re-group and come back punching it will take a military man with experience and sense the US made sure that there would be a wealth of experienced officers with their ill conceived de-Baathification program available…….the prospect is good that a Saddam general will rise to the top of the group.

We did what we always do…..make the seeds of opposition easy to sprout and grow…..

Another round fired into the foot of the nation.

No Change, No Way

Since the Dems had their butts handed to them by Trump in the last election they have been running around looking for their moral compass with the hope of returning to their spot in the limelight…..they say that the leadership of the DNC is their first place to start and will build from there…..

Dems proved Saturday that they are the same spineless toads they have always been……by electing a Clinton-ite to DNC chair…….

Tom Perez was elected as the new chair of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, replacing interim chair Donna Brazile, Politico reports. Perez, who served as Labor secretary under Barack Obama and is a former civil rights lawyer, won during the second ballot after falling a single vote shy in the first round of voting, according to Yahoo News. Perez’s victory ends a four-month race during which he campaigned on returning to organized labor as the central economic message of the Democratic Party.

Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, finished second in the race for DNC chair. Despite having a similar message to Perez, Ellison was backed by Bernie Sanders while Perez was backed by members of the Obama administration and was seen as the establishment choice, the Hill reports. He’s now faced with reuniting those two opposing factions of the party. NBC News tweets that Perez’s first move as chair was to make Ellison deputy chair. Ellison then told his supporters to “give everything you’ve got” to help Perez succeed, MSNBC tweets.

This is not new leadership…just more of the same…..

If they win next time around it will not be because of new leadership…..but rather a hatred of the leadership from the White House.

Black History Month–Bobby Seale

When I was a much younger man I was a political activist, early to mid 70’s, during my travels I got to Oakland, California….I had heard about the work of the Black Panthers and wanted to see how they were pulling off their mini revolution…..about here some will be rolling their eyes but those are the people that have NO ideas what the Panthers were doing other than the propaganda crap that the government and the media was feeding the country.

When we got permission we were introduced to Bobby Seale and a quick hand shake with Huey Newton……we were told that we could walk around and talk to people freely…..I witnessed an amazing co-operative going on with food banks, clinics, pre-school, legal help…I witnessed many programs designed to help the community….I was impressed but the tour was far too short.

I think the people like Bobby Seale do not get the historic coverage they deserve simply because someone did not like their politics.  I will attempt to change that with every opportunity……that is why I am highlighting Bobby Seale here on IST…..

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense at a community center in North Oakland, California, in October 1966, and acknowledged it was a living testament to the Work of Malcolm X. The Black Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. The party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation. The Black Panther agenda was the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines. The FBI labeled Seale and his colleagues in the Black Panthers as “Public Enemy Number One”.

Robert George Seale was born on October 22, 1936, to a poor African American carpenter and his wife in Dallas, Texas. The Seale family moved to Port Arthur, Texas, and then to San Antonio, Texas, before finally settling in Oakland, California, during World War II. Attributing his failure to make the basketball and football teams to racial prejudice, Seale quit Oakland High School and joined the U.S. Air Force. After three years in the Air Force, Seale was court-martialed and given a bad conduct discharge for disobeying a colonel at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.

Read more on this unique civil rights activist……

Source: Civil Rights Leaders- Bobby Seale

History does not teach many Americans about “Black Nationalism”……there is more to it than the negative headlines…….whether one agrees with the ideology is of no concern…it still should be taught and understood.

It is a political and social movement prominent in the 1960s and early ’70s in the United States among some African Americans. The movement, which can be traced back to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association of the 1920s, sought to acquire economic power and to infuse among blacks a sense of community and group feeling. Many adherents to black nationalism assumed the eventual creation of a separate black nation by African Americans. As an alternative to being assimilated by the American nation, which is predominantly white, black nationalists sought to maintain and promote their separate identity as a people of black ancestry. With such slogans as “black power” and “black is beautiful,” they also sought to inculcate a sense of pride among blacks.

Time to learn more about the real work people were doing in their communities and Bobby Seale is a fine example.

Do not dismiss what you do not understand.

We Have a Winner!

We Americans love some winners…..but not all winners are good news….

Recently the US used a drone (the weapon of choice for targeted assassination) to kill the leader of Afghanistan’s Taleban….and this time he is really dead…..not some press release that is retracted in a week or so….nope the dude is dead….confirmed by the Taleban themselves.  (I still would like to know how many civilians were at the location).

After the death announcement was released the Taleban stated that there would be a shura (supreme council) to pick the new leader for the Taleban….and the winner is…….

Senior Taliban members, after successfully evading American drone strikes for long enough to hold a leadership conference, have named a successor to the leader killed in a US airstrike last week. The Afghan Taliban, acknowledging Mullah Mansour’s death for the first time, announced Wednesday that he will be succeeded by one of his deputies, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada. The BBC reports that unlike Mansour, Akhundzada is an uncontroversial choice who has, until now, served more as a religious leader than a military commander and has issued most of the group’s fatwas.

Akhundzada is believed to be a member of the powerful Noorzai tribe from Kandahar, which analysts say will make it easier for him to unite the group. The BBC puts the new leader’s age at somewhere between 45 and 50, though Reuters reports that it’s closer to 60. He is a former aide to Mullah Omar, according to Taliban sources, and like that leader, he is notoriously camera-shy. On the same day Akhundzada was named as the group’s leader, the Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that hit a minibus carrying court employees in Kabul that killed at least 10 people, the AP reports.

Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada

He was said to have been chosen over two key rivals – Sirajuddin Haqqani and Maulvi Yakub – due to his religious background.

Now the question is will the two that were passed over take the loss well?

The next question…at least in my mind is……if the US knew the shura was going to happen why not try to take out the council in one fell swoop?

But I guess that is a post for another day…I would not want to confuse my readers unnecessarily.

State of the world: In search of leadership – Al Jazeera English

The American Exceptionalism thing is all about leadership in the world…..if that is true then we have failed miserably.

Think about it…..who can be considered a world leader?  Obama?  Putin?  Cameron?  Merkel?  Or maybe one of those lying toads that are running for their party’s nomination?  Is one of they capable of being the next world leader?

To be a leader one needs leadership qualities…..and who do you think is capable of having those qualities?

Personally, I see NO one in the current world of international relations that I would consider a leader……there is nothing in the US that shows leadership of any sort….anybody can start a damn war.

There are many world leaders, but why is there no leadership?

Source: State of the world: In search of leadership – Al Jazeera English

Say Good-Bye To Harry

The story of the day…..will not be that the US is dangerously close to yet another conflict in the Middle East…….or that the battle for Tikrit is getting weirder and weirder……..nope none of that will matter….the gigantic news is that Harry Reid will not go for re-election in 2016……

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced this morning he won’t be seeking re-election in 2016, the New York Times reports. The Nevada senator, who reveals he’s been thinking about retiring “for months,” per the Times, says he’s not ending his nearly 30 years in the Senate because he lost his seat as majority leader in November or because of the injuries he suffered during a Jan. 1 exercise session. But in a press release titled “Thank You,” he acknowledges that the “accident has caused us for the first time to have a little down time. I have had time to ponder and to think.” And the result of that thinking was the determination that it’s time to go. “I want to be able to go out at the top of my game,” he tells the Times. “I don’t want to be a 42-year-old trying to become a designated hitter.”

He also acknowledged he doesn’t want to siphon campaign funds that could be used to help Democrats in hotly contested states take back Senate control from the GOP. “I think it is unfair for me to be soaking up all the money to be re-elected with what we are doing in Maryland, in Pennsylvania, in Missouri, in Florida,” he tells the paper. “These are big, expensive states.” Not that Reid plans on simply coasting by during his lame-duck period. “My friend, Senator McConnell, don’t be too elated. I am going to be here for 22 months, and you know what I’m going to be doing? The same thing I’ve done since I first came to the Senate,” he says in the release.

What will the Dems do without their fearless leader?

Unless Dick Durbin makes a stink about it, it appears that Chuck Schumer will replace Harry Reid as the Senate’s Democratic leader come 2016. In an interview after announcing that he would not run for re-election, Reid tells the Washington Post that the New York senator is his pick. “I think Schumer should be able to succeed me,” he says. Schumer is currently the No. 3 Democrat, with Illinois’ Durbin ahead of him as minority whip. But Reid spoke to Durbin today by phone and tells the Post that Durbin will step aside for Schumer.

Neither Schumer nor Durbin has made an official comment on succession plans, but Schumer’s team has long made it known that he would try to replace Reid whenever he stepped down, reports the Hill. One other name being mentioned frequently as a contender is the fourth-ranking Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington state. Even before Reid’s endorsement, however, Schumer was the heavy favorite, notes the Hill.

Oh goody…..a Clinton Dem will lead the Congress……it is NO secret that I do not approve of much that Reid has done….but at least he had the guts to do it….does anyone really think that Schumer has those guts?

I do not….I see him going back to the Blue Dog politics of Clinton…..if so the poor will suffer the most just like they did under Bubba……..

Any thoughts?