(If they are wrong I don’t want to be right.)
It’s probably not racist, but it is certainly unconscionable that The Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives should join, for the first time in this session, House Republicans and Blue Dogs to fund Trump’s border camps over the objection of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus:
CHC Statement on the Passage of the Border Supplemental Appropriation
Jun 27, 2019Press ReleaseWASHINGTON— Today, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus released the following statement on the House passage of H.R. 3401, the Emergency Humanitarian Supplemental, by a vote of 305-102:
“The passage of the Senate supplemental bill is a betrayal of our American values. This bill – opposed by the Hispanic Caucus and nearly 100 Democratic members of the House — will not stop the Trump Administration’s chaos and cruelty. It will not stop the abuse and detention of children. It will not stop the rampant human rights abuses in government custody. It will not stop the Trump Administration from tearing families apart and turning away asylum-seekers. As a result, migrants will continue to die.
“When the Congressional Hispanic Caucus members see suffering at the border, we see our children and our grandchildren. What happened today is unacceptable, and we will not forget this betrayal. Moving forward, we will continue fighting for immigrants to be treated with dignity and respect, work to end Trump’s deportation agenda, and fix our broken immigration system.”
And then for that same Speaker, while noshing from Maureen Dowd’s plate, to demean those allies of the CHC…
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” she said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
(Yeah, only four plus the other 91 progressives who joined them in voting no..)
And go on to lament that the ‘Resident, the motherfucker who lied and demagogued the camps into existence, was not in the country to work with her to make the bill more palatable:
“Trump called Pelosi from overseas to congratulate her on passing the border bill.
“I actually think if he were here, we might have had a better shot” at getting more of what the Democrats wanted in the bill, she said. “One thing he understands is the public view of things.”
That shit would make a cat laugh. If drumpf understood the “public view of things” he’d resign and hie his fat ass back to Bedminster or Mar-a-Loogie and stop ripping the country apart.
Well, some liberals and progressives aren’t buying the company line.
Yesterday, at Net Roots, this from Senator Jeff Merkley, as reported by Business Insider:
“Merkley blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for giving into Republicans and moderate Democrats for deciding not to allow Democrats to conference on the aid package last week. He said that Senate Democrats were under the impression that it would go to conference — a chance to hash out differences between House and Senate bills — rather than the House voting on the Senate version of the bill.
”The complete assumption on the Senate side was that Speaker Pelosi would take it to conference, and she didn’t,” Merkley said, calling the outcome “horrendous.”
The House ultimately passed the bipartisan legislation without the support of almost 100 Democrats. Outspoken progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were infuriated by the process, which they argued failed to leverage Democratic power to strengthen the bill.”
And today, at the same conference, the reviled Squad took to offense, as reported by Dave Weigel:
Up next, @AyannaPressley says that she is fed up with "palace intrigue," not much mystery about what she means.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 13, 2019
.@AyannaPressley: "What is happening in these ICE facilities where they pilot how they can abuse privacy rights, how they can abuse human rights, and they scale that up." But notes that black and brown people disproportionately work for CBP.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 13, 2019
Quoting what a colleague said to her, @IlhanMN: "If there were dogs in those cages, every single member of Congress would vote to make sure those cages didn’t exist."
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 13, 2019
Omar is recounting her questioning of Elliot Abrams in the Foreign Affairs committee: "[Knowing] the trail of blood that he has left in South and Central America. I wasn’t about to let him come and talk to us about what he was doing in Venezuela."
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 13, 2019
*black FACES that don't want etc
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 13, 2019
Lawrence Tribe has a question:
Why is @SpeakerPelosi giving priority to marginalizing @AOC @AyannaPressley @RashidaTlaib & @IlhanMN (the “squad”) over unleashing the House to perform its checking function with every tool in the kit? Consider retweeting if you share my growing puzzlement and anger.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) July 13, 2019
And Rep. Pramila Jayapal an observation:
Yesterday Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments about the four progressive women known as the Squad were not "helpful." My writeup: https://t.co/fcGjNFFUW6 via @HuffPostPol
— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) July 13, 2019
Charlie Pierce is watching…
“A constant stream of garbage.”
— Ilhan Omar on the administration*— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 13, 2019
Rep. Omar now talking about “the trail of blood” left behind him by Elliott Abrams. #NN19
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 13, 2019
Mutual Assured Destruction: my plan to end the stupid. Both AOC and the Speaker agree to fire their entire staffs and start from scratch.
I believe this will bring peace to the valley.— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 13, 2019
But HRC’s Nation Press Secretary in 2016, Brian Fallon, says it best for me:
The four House freshmen whom Pelosi dismisses in the Dowd column have done more to define the vision and moral center of today's Democratic party than all of the message bills pushed by the party leadership combined.
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) July 7, 2019
I have respect for Speaker Pelosi’s leadership abilities, but she is just flat out wrong on this.
There is no dead certainty that the blue dog districts will desert the Democratic Party for standing up to Mjango Unchained, after all they voted in Dems in 2018 after watching the idiot perform for two years and most of the Press lauding his “great economy”.
But if she continues to stifle progressive’s resistance and manages to dog walk some of the party’s bright lights, Pelosi may signal to wavering voters in those and other districts that the party isn’t worth the trouble to vote for…
We don’t need to change leadership, but leadership needs to change.
"If it was your son
you would fill the sea
with ships all by the millions
acting as a bridge
to get it through.
But don't worry,
He's just a child of lost humanity,
of dirty humanity,
which makes no noise.
He is not your son.
Sleep peacefully,
it's not yours."— Muhammad Najem pic.twitter.com/CoGNz6FoN9
— Derek Johnson (@derekjGZ) July 12, 2019
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[cross-posted to PolitiZoom]
I like the comment that AOC and Speaker Pelosi should both fire their staff and start over…although that seems harsh for their staffs when they’re the ultimate decision makers. I’ll confess that I don’t know what Nancy Pelosi is thinking here, but I have so much uncertainty there I don’t agree or disagree with her.
Trump has this lever of power with ICE that he’s using for his own ends. He’s using this in a manner completely consistent with authoritarianism – create a crisis, force others to react, then point to the reaction as justification for your actions and ideas.
The Dem base wants to react…the thinking that reaction will create awareness and opposition. This could work. Trump’s strategy is likely to then tamp down the horrors of the camps, and point to the left’s “lawlessness” as the root problem. The problem is that when authoritarians have power, this very frequently works too.
So I don’t know what the answer is. But this period in our history needs to be a lesson to us all. The presidency has great power. The courts have great power. We ignore the implications of allowing bad people into these positions out of indifference at our own peril.
Nancy needs to stop listening to the go-slow lot. She’s nearly out of time to do *anything* useful.
This…
“The four House freshmen whom Pelosi dismisses in the Dowd column have done more to define the vision and moral center of today’s Democratic party than all of the message bills pushed by the party leadership combined.
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) July 7, 2019”
…says it best for me, too.
How about you?
I find that to be a rather pointless and empty platitude, personally. I mean…regardless what I think about anyone it is speaking about, it’s a really hollow and dumb statement.
The four freshman Dems are pretty admirable and remarkable, and I think they’re very principled. But I think it’s silly and propagandistic to leverage this into deifying them as superior to everyone else.
As an example, Rep Katie Porter has done a LOT to stand for her values. So has Rep Katie Hill. For that matter, so has Rep Schiff…and so many others. Fallon’s statement puts four freshman on a pedestal I don’t think is deserved.
Out politics have become stupidly hyperbolic. Everything has to be the best thing in the universe or the worst thing in human history. The real world is painted in shades of gray. The freshman four are good and honorable women, but like all people they have their flaws.
They have their flaws but they have done more to DEFINE the VISION and MORAL CENTER of today’s Democratic party than ALL of the MESSAGE BILLS pushed by the party leadership combined.