Tag: Nancy Pelosi

Saturday Soother – House of Representatives Edition, November 19, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Verbena and sunset, Anza Borrego SP, CA – November 2022 photo by Paulette Donnellon

We start Saturday with a reflection on the outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Many think that she ranks as the best House Speaker in modern times.

Wrongo remembers her for standing up to Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel during the debate over the shape of the ACA. There was much concern about how far the Democrats could go with the bill. Emmanuel wanted to tone it down to meet objections from the GOP and from moderate Dems.

Pelosi met with Obama and his aides and said that she wouldn’t support anything but the full monte. That caused the White House’s effort to find a more moderate way forward to crumble. And America made its biggest single step toward providing health insurance to all Americans.

At the end, It was Pelosi not Obama, who made it happen. It was her ability to deliver her caucus that gave Obama et.al a spine.

Wrongo recently learned that when Nancy Pelosi was a teen and her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was mayor of Baltimore, she maintained his “favors book”. That explains much about her effectiveness when she finally got to Congress at age 47. At the point when she took office, she had five kids. Wrangling them, plus learning to keep a “favors book” was probably ideal preparation for being the first woman House Speaker.

This week, control of the US House has passed to the Republican Party. That means two things: First, that Republicans will now say that compliance with House subpoenas is mandatory, even though they purposefully ignored them for the last two years.

Second, Americans should prepare for investigations of the Biden administration by grandstanding GOP Congresscritters. James Comer (R-KY) held a press conference saying that he will be looking into Hunter Biden, his laptop, and his father. Comer, the incoming Oversight Committee chair, has said an investigation into Hunter Biden and other Biden family members and associates will be a priority. His idea is to try and position the president as having compromised national security.

If that seems to echo the FBI/DOJ investigations into Trump, well, that’s purely a coincidence. Be prepared to see absolutely nothing get done over the next two+ years that might improve the lives of the American people.

Let’s spend a minute on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Last March, the WaPo did a story on a security review it had authorized of the disk drive on the “Hunter Biden laptop”. The WaPo asked security experts Matt Green and Jake Williams to review the drive to see what they could authenticate. From the WaPo:

“In their examinations, Green and Williams found evidence that people other than Hunter Biden had accessed the drive and written files to it, both before and after the initial stories in the New York Post and long after the laptop itself had been turned over to the FBI.”

So people had kept adding content to the “laptop,” making it impossible to say what was on the “laptop” when it was originally provided to the Delaware computer repair shop.

More from the WaPo:

“Analysis was made significantly more difficult, both experts said, because the data had been handled repeatedly in a manner that deleted logs and other files that forensic experts use to establish a file’s authenticity.”

But according to the House Republicans:

You should read the entire story of the laptop in the WaPo. It details the laptop’s convoluted journey from Hunter to the FBI, while several other copies of its hard drive were made. They went to Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon. The WaPo reviewed one of the Republican copies, but not the one in the hands of the FBI.

What would a jury decide if this laptop was Exhibit A? Would they consider it to be tainted evidence? Seems like there are too many unknowns and too many people who had access to it.

But what will the House GOP grandstanders make out of it? Will laptop-gate be legitimatized by the media? And will many citizens fall for it just like they did with Clinton’s email server? The Right has lots of practice at turning complicated stories into political gold.

Time to move on to our Saturday Soother. Here on the fields of Wrong, nearly all of our yard work was completed before the first snowfall this week. Along with everyone in the northeast, our weather turned cold, and winter jackets are now hanging on the hook by the back door.

To ease into Saturday, start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Villa Betulia Maragesha ($30/8oz.) from Colorado’s Corvus Coffee. The roaster says it has flavors of peach liqueur and strawberry syrup. Maybe that’s why it’s so expensive.

Now grab a seat near a south-facing window and watch and listen to the Adagio movement of the “Concierto de Aranjuez” by the Spanish composer JoaquĂ­n Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is Rodrigo’s best-known work. Here it is played by Hauser on cello and Petrit Çeku on guitar at the “HAUSER & Friends” Concert in Croatia in 2018, along with Ivo Lipanovic conducting the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother, Taiwan Edition – August 6, 2022

The Daily Escape:

El Morro National Monument, NM – monsoon rains have turned the brown landscape green – July 2022 photo by Kirk Shoemaker

We need to talk about Taiwan. China said that they wouldn’t tolerate a visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and that there would be severe consequences if she failed to heed China’s warning. But she ignored China, and went anyway.

China then launched a comprehensive set of war games, showing clearly how they might invade and take over Taiwan militarily at some point in the future. China then announced it sanctioned Pelosi and her family. Now, according to the BBC, China has said all dialogue between US and Chinese defense officials would be cancelled, while co-operation on returning illegal immigrants, climate change, and on investigating international crime would be suspended.

You know the broad outline of the issues: China viewed Pelosi’s visit as a challenge to its claims of sovereignty over Taiwan, even though Taiwan is self-ruled, and sees itself as distinct from the mainland.

As China has become a global leader, their abilities and ambitions have shifted. A 1997 trip to Taiwan by then US House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was met with little opposition, while the Speaker Pelosi visit has been met with missiles. This is a complicated issue. China doesn’t control Taiwan; it doesn’t issue travel visas for it, either. In April, a group of US Senators visited Taiwan. At the time, China’s Foreign Ministry condemned the visit in a series of tweets and press statements, but nothing more.

The US has wanted to keep Taiwan in its orbit at least since the 1950’s when General Douglas MacArthur, then the Supreme Commander of allied powers in Japan, sent a top secret “Memorandum on Formosa” to President Truman (Back then, Formosa was the name of Taiwan). To contain communism, MacArthur insisted that Truman consider the strategically located Formosa (Taiwan) as a counterbalance to the Soviet and Chinese regional expansion:

“Formosa in the hands of the Communists can be compared to an unsinkable aircraft carrier….”

He argued that Taiwan should instead be an unsinkable US aircraft carrier, projecting American power in the Pacific. As China grew in power and importance, the US adopted a policy of strategic ambiguity with respect to the two countries, wanting good relations with both and wanting to finesse the question of political control of Taiwan.

But lately, the US has been slowly walking away from the doctrine of strategic ambiguity, increasingly signaling to China that it considers Taiwan a core US interest in North Asia. That’s why the Chinese reacted so strongly to a high level politician like Pelosi visiting Taiwan.

It’s also true that the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits are among the world’s busiest seaways, and that’s where China’s military exercises are now taking place:

Source: Bloomberg. The dots are vessels, the polygons are China’s military drill areas

The NYT’s Tom Friedman connected Pelosi’s trip to the Biden administration’s previous efforts to keep China from getting involved in Ukraine on Russia’s side:

“There are moments in international relations when you need to keep your eyes on the prize. Today that prize is crystal clear: We must ensure that Ukraine is able, at a minimum, to blunt — and, at a maximum, reverse — Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion…”

Biden had held a series of tough meetings with Xi, trying to keep Beijing out of the Ukraine conflict. Friedman says that Biden told President Xi that if China entered the war in Ukraine on Russia’s side, Beijing would be risking access to its two most important export markets — the US and the EU. More from Friedman:

“By all indications…China has responded by not providing military aid to Putin — at a time when the US and NATO have been giving Ukraine intelligence support and a significant number of advanced weapons that have done serious damage to the military of Russia, China’s ostensible ally.”

So why mess with Biden’s Ukraine power play, Nancy? That’s Friedman’s question. OTOH, everyone knows that the minute we bend a knee to China is when we lose our ability to defend Taiwan and hold on to the unsinkable aircraft carrier.

China hasn’t proven itself capable of dealing with Taiwan except through threats since Chiang Kai-Shek left the mainland and took over in Taiwan in 1950. If China wants to control Taiwan without a fight, it has to stop threatening to rape her if she doesn’t want to date. Every Chinese threat increases Taiwan’s separate national identity, and decreases the chance of a peaceful Chinese takeover.

Time to leave geopolitics behind, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we focus on clearing our minds for the week to come. Here on the fields of Wrong, we have a crew rebuilding a stone wall by the road that was hit by a large truck a few years ago.

Let’s start by finding that one last can of nitro cold brew in the back of the refrigerator and grab a seat by a large window. Now put on your wireless headphones and listen to “Danse Bacchanale” by Camille Saint-SaĂ«ns from his opera “Samson et Dalila”, played here by the Orquesta SinfĂłnica Juvenil de Caracas, Venezuela in 2010:

This is played at a very quick tempo, and with passion!

Facebooklinkedinrss

Trump’s Sweet Little Lies

The Daily Escape:

Owens River, Owens Valley, CA – 2020 photo by AndrewHelmer. Owens is the deepest valley in the US.

A few thoughts about the SOTU. First, should we have minimum standards of conduct and language in our society? If so, should the president reflect them? Or, have we finally reached peak SOTU=STFU?

Trump wouldn’t shake Pelosi’s hand. Pelosi tore up her courtesy copy of the SOTU speech after Trump finished speaking. Both were empty gestures of contempt. Pelosi later explained to reporters that she tore up the speech because it was “manifesto of mistruths”. Twitter was ablaze, using hashtags like#NancytheRipper. The right predictably reacted. Here’s Jonathan Turley’s tweet:

“Pelosi’s act dishonored the institution and destroyed even the pretense of civility and decorum in the House. If this is the Speaker’s “drop the mike” moment, it is a disgrace that should never be celebrated or repeated. In a single act, she obliterated decades of tradition.”

Some (Nikki Haley) said that Pelosi was dishonoring the last surviving Tuskegee Airman and a service member’s reunion with his family. Some are calling for a one-way return to civility. Why is it that calls for more grace and more respect for tradition only operate in the Democrats’ direction?

Some always point out that we can give the OFFICE respect without giving the person respect. That’s an important distinction, one Wrongo supports, and one not made during the Obama era by Republicans.

Heather Cox Richardson sums up the evening:

“Trump….went on to play the game show host turned autocratic ruler. In the course of the speech, he developed the theme that he, the president, could raise hurting individuals up to glory. He promoted an older African American veteran to General. He awarded a scholarship to a child who had previously been unable to get one. He had Melania award the Medal of Freedom to talk show host Rush Limbaugh….He reunited a military family. Contrived though all these scenarios were, they made him the catalyst for improving the lives of individuals in ways to which we all can relate. It was reality TV: false, scripted, and effective.”

It was Trump’s Oprah moment: You get a scholarship! You get a medal of freedom! Juan GuaidĂł, you get Venezuela! If he had asked the audience to look under their seats for envelopes, Trump’s night would have been indistinguishable from an Oprah show.

But the worst was honoring Limbaugh: A horse’s ass recognized by a jackass. It may replace what to Wrongo’s thinking was the worst Presidential Medal of Freedom, Trump’s award to napkin economist Arthur Laffer. He of the 40-year proven failure of economic theory, the Laffer curve. But now and forever, America will have honored Rush, who the right-wing media will hereafter describe as the stoic hero facing a terrible death.

The media’s other narrative will be: Nancy, the Nasty Bitch.

The WaPo again did yeoman’s work fact-checking Trump’s lies in the SOTU speech:

“Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them,”

He repeats them incessantly to wear down the media, and to exhaust the rest of us. He hopes that we’ll accept his version of reality.

If you knew nothing about the last three years of Trump’s presidency, the picture he painted sounded pretty good. If you have paid any attention at all, you know that the country was being snowed under with an avalanche of lies and half-truths.

His was a long, tedious exercise in election-year pandering and demagoguery. The president’s record of accomplishments is thin, so he had to pad it with hyperbole and outlandish claims.

Let’s close with a musical interlude. Here’s Fleetwood Mac’s video of their hit “Sweet Little Lies”, an appropriate tune for Trump’s manifesto of mistruths:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Pelosi: We’re Making It up as We Go

The Daily Escape:

Hat tip – A. James

“When you’re born into this world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. If you’re born in America you get a front row seat.” –George Carlin

Donald Trump was impeached on Wednesday. Wrongo sees Trump as dangerously incompetent and personally corrupt. But the way Democrats have gone about the impeachment isn’t winning the hearts and minds of independents, a group of voters they need if they are to take back the Presidency in 2020 and hold on to the House.

It’s helpful to remember that the only reason the impeachment is going forward is that the 2018 midterms gave Democrats a significant majority in the House. Even with uncontested evidence that the president abused his power, Republicans have demonstrated no interest in holding Trump accountable. It is clear that if they were still in the majority, none of this would be happening.

A side note on Tulsi Gabbard, the only person who voted “present” on both impeachment motions: Wrongo has kind of admired her principled political stands. He’s agreed with a few of them. But voting “present”? Apparently she couldn’t decide on the two motions. She’s a presidential candidate. The ability to decide and lead are core competencies of the job. She has disqualified herself.

It’s always been clear that Trump wouldn’t be convicted in the Senate. It seems that, as with the Mueller investigation, the Dems were unclear about the likely outcome of their efforts. Did they expect Trump would simply resign in shame, or maybe run a half-hearted campaign in 2020? Trump is a fighter and a blockhead, so they should have known he would love the chance to talk about impeachment from now until next November.

The move that caught everyone, including reporters at the hearing, by surprise, was Pelosi’s statement that she had not set a time for sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. This was surprising since they had been saying all along that they’d impeach Trump by Christmas. They sounded as if they were eager to move the process forward.

Is this a political calculation? It runs the risk of making them look either too clever by half, or worried about the impeachment fallout with voters. After all, voter approval of impeachment peaked in October. Support for it has now fallen, and Trump’s approval ratings have risen since then.

Pelosi seems to be saying that the delay is because they are tussling with the openly partisan Mitch McConnell over the rules for the hearing. There is something to that if you consider that with the Clinton impeachment, the Senate impeachment process was negotiated in private between the Parties, and was approved by a 100-0 vote when Republican Trent Lott was Majority Leader.

That isn’t happening with Mitch in charge. This time, the Republicans want a quick trial, and then to declare victory.

Wrongo thinks that Trump deserves to be impeached, but as someone who was around for the Nixon and Clinton impeachment efforts, it seems as if the Democrats have made the same mistake this time that the Republicans made with Clinton: The Ukrainian case is just too small an offense. Guilt isn’t the issue, but to the average person, the punishment doesn’t match the crime.

With Clinton, 79% of the public thought Clinton was guilty. But the vast majority thought that lying about consensual sex was too small a crime to merit impeachment.

Democrats have a similar problem today. Trump did it, or at least, tried to do it. He’s incorrigible, too. He won’t have any hesitation about abusing his office again if it means gaining some personal advantage.

But because the Trump impeachment case has been so tightly limited to the Ukraine episode, the Democrats have lowered the stakes. People shrug: Ukraine got its aid eventually, and the Ukies aren’t investigating Hunter Biden, so….whatever.

Public support for impeaching Trump is about 50/50 and hasn’t moved appreciably in months. As much as Trump is a terrible president, Dems have managed to make him look borderline acceptable in this case.

Most of our DC politicians live in the beltway bubble. You can be sure that in 2016 many Dems said “It’s going to be a landslide. No woman or minority is going to vote for him.”

Then, the Dems were shocked by the Mueller report non-event.

Now, they’re flummoxed that impeachment is becoming less popular. They were sure it was going to popular with even the few Republican moderates and most independent voters.

Where do Dems go from here?

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 10, 2019

We start the new week as we ended it. Plenty of politics, not much in the way of progress for the country. Trump’s Friday physical didn’t go as planned:

Girl talk after the SOTU:

Executive time is seen as a good thing:

Trump hates House investigations, pledges to go another way:

VA governor Northam seeks place where moonwalking is OK for his political career:

Plutocrats favor the green deal we have, not the one we need:

Socialism for the rich is perfectly fine:

Trump announced North Korean summit, God shakes his head:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 27, 2019

It took LaGuardia Airport being closed for about an hour before Trump and the GOP crumbled on the government shutdown. Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave to see that the Air Traffic Controllers union that he once busted rise up again, and change policy in DC.

Pelosi made Trump cave:

An ancient artifact blocks entrance to Capitol:

It was indeed a great fall:

The bar has been lowered:

The herd is heading to Iowa and New Hampshire:

Davos: Where the rich and the insincere act like something other than profits is important:

Trump’s buddy Roger Stone desperately acts as if all is well:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Who Will Blink First?

The Daily Escape:

Maui, 2013 – photo by Wrongo

Sometimes you get the right person for the job:

“Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday she will block President Trump from delivering the State of the Union address in the House chamber on Jan. 29. In a letter to Trump, Pelosi said she would not move forward with the legislative steps needed for the address to take place:

‘The House of Representatives will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the president’s State of the Union address in the House chamber until government has opened,’ she wrote.

Pelosi’s move comes just hours after Trump informed her in a letter that he would move ahead and deliver the address at the Capitol on that date, essentially daring the Speaker to scrap his plans.”

This is why the election of House Speaker truly mattered. Dems should have assumed that whoever got the job would be immediately tested by Trump. When some Dems moved to replace Pelosi in December, the possible shutdown and test of a new Speaker was on the horizon. If another Democrat had been elected Speaker, don’t you think Trump would have already gotten his Wall money?

Someone’s gonna blink, and soon. Trump’s support looks like it’s beginning to crack:

“Overall, 34% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance in a survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s down from 42% a month earlier and nears the lowest mark of his two-year presidency. The president’s approval among Republicans remains close to 80%, but his standing with independents is among its lowest points of his time in office.”

Trump has similar numbers in the latest CBS poll:

“Seven in 10 Americans don’t think the issue of a border wall is worth a government shutdown, which they say is now having a negative impact on the country….Among Americans overall, and including independents, more want to see Mr. Trump give up wall funding than prefer the congressional Democrats agree to wall funding. Comparably more Americans feel House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is handling negotiations better than the president is so far.

Republicans are more divided than Democrats are on whether the shutdown is worth it.”

As we’ve said in the past, $5.7 billion is not a lot of money, but it’s always been about more than just the money. If Democrats cave in now, particularly when public opinion supports them, it would reward Trump’s tactic of taking hostages. He would gladly bring more pain any time he wanted something, and he wouldn’t care who, or what he took hostage.

But there are other insights to why Trump may persist with the shutdown despite poor polls. Sarah Kendzior said this on Twitter: (emphasis by Wrongo)

”The Trump camp is not worried about public approval, because they’re not worried about losing elections, because they don’t plan on having free or fair elections. This is an acceleration of the move toward authoritarianism….The shutdown is a hostile restructuring
Mueller will not save you
We are being ruled by a coalition of corruption, a burden we as ordinary citizens all share but none deserve. The shutdown is not about Trump knowing too little about how government works, but about his team of GOP operatives and outside advisors knowing too much.”

Perhaps Kendzior is correct, but more likely, Trump is learning that the Art of the Deal doesn’t work when the other side has roughly equal power. He hasn’t caused Democrats to blink, if fact they seem more united than ever.

He hasn’t “won” anything with China. So far, they’ve had alternative solutions to keep trade flowing. He certainly hasn’t “won” his war of words with Nancy Pelosi.

But someone will blink, and possibly, soon. The GOP is asking for concessions when they ought to be offering them.

Thursday’s votes in the Senate will tell us nearly nothing, but since Schumer and McConnell had to agree that both votes would happen, maybe they point to an evolving position that 60 Senators and Pelosi can support.

Most likely, Pelosi will offer an alternative after the Senate votes, something that possibly could get 60 votes in the Senate.

Maybe Trump will console himself with a military action in Venezuela. He launched an attempt to kick President Maduro out of office by recognizing the opposition leader as interim president. Maduro responded by telling our diplomats to leave within 72 hours. The US replied that our diplomats will not leave simply because the elected president of Venezuela (that we no longer recognize as legitimate) has asked them to.

Going to war in the middle of a government shutdown: what could go wrong?

Someone will blink. The bet here is that it will be Senate Republicans who will prevail upon Trump to back down, and support whatever compromise can garner sufficient votes in the House and Senate.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 6, 2019

Trump threatened to declare a national emergency last week in order to build his wall without Congress’s approval. Had those words been spoken by any prior president, America would be in a panic. We’re discounting the extreme message, because of who is saying it. We are certainly in the middle of a national emergency, but it ain’t on the border, it’s in the Oval Office:

The Republican New Year’s kick off:

In case you missed it, Mitch and Nancy took their accustomed roles:

Republicans think all Dems dance alike:

There’s more than one wall under discussion in DC:

The misogyny in 2020 campaign begins:

Facebooklinkedinrss

Saturday Soother – January 5, 2019

The Daily Escape:

Bryce Canyon NP, looking down at the Wall Street trail – this photo was taken on New Year’s Eve by natsmith69. The photographer says he didn’t hike down because of the government shutdown.

Two topics for today: First, the December jobs report, which was encouraging in the face of a roller-coaster stock market. Employment rose a very strong 312,000 jobs in December, bringing the full count of jobs added for 2018 up to 2.6 million, the strongest year for job gains since 2015.

Unemployment ticked up to 3.9%, largely because more people were drawn into the labor market as measured by the civilian labor force participation rate. It moved up two-tenths to 63.1%, its highest level since 2014. That’s a reminder that the job market still has capacity to expand.

Wage growth accelerated slightly, and tied cyclical highs. Weekly hours worked edged up, job gains for the prior two months were revised upwards, and a very high 70% of private industries added jobs.

It seems that low unemployment has finally started to lead to pressure to raise pay.

Despite all of this positive labor market news, there are economic headwinds in the volatile stock market, Trump’s trade war, and slower economic growth abroad.

Some economists are forecasting a grim outlook for near-term US economic growth. OTOH, low unemployment, job gains, and higher wages should boost consumer spending, which accounts for almost 70% of the US economy.

Try to keep calm about the stock market. There isn’t much definitive economic news that should make you decide to bail out of stocks just now.

Item two: The shut-down. On Friday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) after another meeting about the shut-down, said that Trump threatened to keep the government closed for “months or even years” until he gets his desired wall funding.

Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) described the meeting as a “lengthy and sometimes contentious conversation with the president.” She said both sides agreed to continue talks. She then said: (brackets by Wrongo)

 We cannot resolve this until we open up [the] government…

So far, most Republicans are keeping a stiff upper lip, saying just what Trump says. But there are a few cracks, notably Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) and possibly, Susan Collins (R-ME), who are asking to re-open the federal government without a deal on funding the border wall.

Clearly there is a deal to be had. It probably looks like funding Trump’s wall, which is a rounding error in the federal budget, in return for passing a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) relief bill as part of immigration reform. Lawmakers in both parties are sympathetic to immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

The Hill reports that Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of GOP leadership, said that while he hasn’t been involved in overall immigration discussions, expanding the scope of negotiations could be one way to break the logjam:

You know, sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to make it bigger, and that’s always one of the options here…

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is urging Trump to strike a deal on comprehensive immigration reform:

Why would he not agree to such a thing…We could go small, we could go a little bigger
 but I’d like to see the president say, ‘OK, we’ve got a new Congress. We’ve got divided government. I’m the president who can actually make this happen.’

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is pitching his proposal that would establish a $25 billion border trust fund and codify protections for DACA recipients. Remember that Trump rejected a similar offer from Senate Democrats last year, so it isn’t clear where the goalposts for such a deal are today. We’ll have to watch the drama unfold.

Time to let go of the news and settle into a Saturday soother, maybe while taking down ornaments. Start the process of soothing by brewing up a yuuge cup of Panama Ninety Plus Perci Lot 50 coffee ($60/8 oz.) from Birdrock Coffee of San Diego, CA. Coffee Review rates it at 97, with tastes of fruit while being giddily brandy-toned. Maybe that’s a rave.

Now settle back in a comfy chair and listen to the “Adagio for Oboe, Cello, Organ and Strings” by Domenico Zipoli. Zipoli was an Italian Jesuit priest who lived much of his life in what is now Argentina. He studied with Scarlatti, became a Jesuit, worked as a missionary and died in 1726 in Argentina at age 38:

If fate had granted Zipoli another 20 to 25 years, he would be regarded today as a major composer.

Facebooklinkedinrss

Pelosi is Again Speaker, Like Sam Rayburn Before Her

The Daily Escape:

Christmas time near Steamboat Springs, CO – 2018 photo by dadams2117

Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House yesterday for the second time. Most Democrats see this as good news, since she knows her way around counting heads and striking deals. She actually received 220 votes, 17 more than the 203 Dems who supported her at the Democratic Caucus vote on Nov. 28.

There were 15 Democrats who voted against her in the roll call vote. Some had run on a pledge not to support Pelosi as speaker should Democrats regain control of the House, saying the party needed new blood in leadership. Seth Moulton (D-MA) led the charge against Pelosi, only to turn around and vote for her today in a typical show of Congressional spinelessness.

This brings up some other interesting data:

  • Total women in the US House of Representatives in 1989:
    16 Democrats
    13 Republicans
  • Total women in the US House of Representatives, 2019:
    89 Democrats
    13 Republicans

The numbers are telling when you break them down percentage-wise:

  • Percent women in the US House of Representatives in 1989:
    2% = 16/258 Democrats
    7.3% = 13/177 Republicans
  • Percent women in the US House of Representatives, 2019:
    9% = 89/235 Democrats
    6.5% = 13/199 Republicans

Among other fun demographic Congressional facts, a record-breaking 63 members of Congress do not identify as Christian (including Mormons as Christians). And 61 of these are Democrats; only two of ~250 Republicans (in both Houses) are non-Christian. And of course the Republican caucus is roughly 99% White and male.

And their all part of a Congress that is charged with representing a nation that is decidedly not 99% white Christian Dudes. And in a final celebratory vein, let’s all take a moment to remember that the faker Paul Ryan is now just a former member of Congress.

But there are issues with how Pelosi will drive the political agenda. She’s in favor of Paygo, an obscure budget rule that requires any legislation that increases spending (like entitlement programs) or cutting taxes (therefore increasing the deficit over the next 10 years) to be offset with budget cuts to mandatory spending or tax increases. The rule can only be waived with a majority vote.

For some House Democrats, particularly those who want to pursue ambitious new ideas like a Green New Deal, or Medicare for All, requiring budget cuts or tax increases to pay for them stops those bills in their tracks.

The Establishment Democrats are saying, “Be realistic”. But we weren’t realistic in WW II. We just fully mobilized every citizen in America, every factory, every natural resource for the war effort, despite the cost. At the time, our only true constraints were available resources, not budget room.

Apparently, to Establishment Dems, deaths from lack of money or insurance for health care doesn’t warrant that kind of mobilization. Nor does climate disruption.

Will the Establishment Democrats turn out to be useless to the effort to reform capitalism, or other progressive policies? We’ll see.

Facebooklinkedinrss