🤯☠️🤮 BAD JUDGING TRIFECTA: BIA’s Poor Performance Tries The Patience Of The Ultra-Conservative 5th Circuit!

Three LemonsBy Auguste Renoir (1918} Public Realm
Three Lemons
By Auguste Renoir (1918}
Public Realm
The BIA pulls three lemons on an epic judging fail that left a sour taste in the mouths of Fifth Circuit Judges!

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/big-reversal-and-victory-at-ca5-argueta-hernandez-ii

On July 10, 2023, a Fifth Circuit panel dismissed Mr. Argueta-Hernandez’ petition for review for lack of jurisdiction, 73 F.4th 300.

On Dec. 5, 2023 the panel (Higginbotham, Graves, and Douglas) granted rehearing, granted the petition, vacated and remanded:

“Although we owe deference to the BIA, that deference is not blind. Here, where the BIA misapplied prevailing case law, disregarded crucial evidence, and failed to adequately support its decisions, we are compelled to grant the petition for review, vacate the immigration court decisions, and remand to BIA for further proceedings.”

[Hats way off to Alison Lo, Jonathan Cooper and Chuck Roth!]

Alison Lo, Esquire
Alison Lo, Esquire
Jonathan Cooper, Esquire
Jonathan Cooper, Esquire
Chuck Roth, Esquire
Chuck Roth, Esquire

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

Congrats to this all-star NDPA litigation team. Once again, the expertise and scholarship in asylum and immigration law is on the “outside,” the NDPA, rather than at EOIR where it is so much needed!

Judge Higginbotham is a Reagan appointee. Judge Graves was appointed by Obama. Judge Douglas is a Biden appointee.

Here’s what the “coveted trifecta of bad judging” looks like:

The BIA:

1) misapplied prevailing case law,

2) disregarded crucial evidence, and

3) failed to adequately support its decisions!

My only question is: Did they manage to get the ”A#” right?

Golden nugget: The 5th Circuit recognizes that under the Supremes’ decision in Cardoza-Fonseca: “A ‘reasonable degree’ [for establishing a “well founded fear”] means a ten percent chance.” This “seminal rule” is violated by BIA panels and Immigration Judges across the nation on a daily basis. It is also widely ignored by many Circuit panels.

Unlike the BIA, Judge Higgenbotham carefully and clearly explains how threats other than physical injury can amount to persecution — another “seminal rule” that too many EOIR adjudicators routinely ignore.

In sharp contrast to the BIA’s intentional “butchering” of the “mixed motive” doctrine in Matter of M-R-M-S-, 28 I&N Dec. 757 (BIA 2023), Judge Higgenbotham correctly articulates the meaning of “at least one central reason.” See https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/12/04/☠️🤯-bia-trashes-normal-legal-rules-of-causation-jettisons-4th-cir-precedent-to-deny-family-based-psg-case-the-latest-anti-asylum-znger-from-falls-church-famil/.

He states:

By characterizing MS-13’s threats against Argueta-Hernandez and his family as
solely extortion, BIA disregards that he needed only to present “‘some
particularized connection between the feared persecution’” and the
protected ground in which his application for relief relies. . . . Such a rigorous standard would largely render nugatory the Supreme Court’s decision in INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987).”).

Precisely! Ignoring Cardoza-Fonseca and their own binding precedent in Matter of Mogharrabi is what the BIA does frequently in “manipulating the nexus requirement” to deny meritorious claims to qualified refugees who face real harm! It’s all part of the toxic anti-asylum bias and “any reason to deny culture” that still permeates EOIR under Garland!

The BIA is not allowed to “presume,” as they effectively did in M-R-M-S-, the lack of qualifying motivation in “family based” psg cases and place an undue burden on the respondent to “prove” otherwise. 

The panel also reams out the BIA for failure to follow basic rules and precedents requiring a separate CAT analysis.

Unlike the legal gobbldygook, obfuscation, doublespeak, and “canned” language that plagues many BIA opinions, Judge Higginbotham offers a clear, understandable, clinical explanation of asylum law and how it should be applied to what is actually a recurring situation in asylum law! 

Reading this very clear opinion, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a panel of “general jurisdiction” Federal Judges from a so-called “conservative Circuit” who understood the complexity and nuances of asylum law, while the BIA Appellate Judges were the “rank amateurs.” This reflects a criticism oft made by my Round Table colleague Hon. “Sir Jeffrey” Chase  that EOIR’s asylum training is grotesquely substandard — far below that readily available in the “private/NGO/academic” sector! What possible excuse could there be for this ongoing travesty at DOJ?

Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges. His consistent, outspoken criticism of EOIR’s poor asylum training is proving all too true on a daily basis!

 

AG Garland continues to show a truly (and disturbingly) remarkable tolerance for poor judicial performance by his subordinates at the BIA. At the same time, he shows little, if any, concern for the deadly devastating impact of that bad judging on human lives and the way it corrodes our entire legal system!

The glaring, life-threatening legal and operational problems at EOIR are solvable. We should all be asking why, after three years in office, a Dem Administration has made such feeble efforts to bring long overdue leadership, substantive, and operational changes to “America’s worst court system?” Well into what was supposed to be a “reform” Administration, EOIR remains a steeped in the “culture of denial and bias against asylum seekers” actively furthered by the Trump Administration and NOT effectively addressed by Garland (although he concededly has made a few improvements)!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-06-23

😴 MAYBE HE SLEPT THROUGH HISTORY CLASS — K-MAC’s “Unwoke” GOP Version Of U.S. History Points The Way To A Dumber Future For A Nation That Fears Truth! — From Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair

Rip Van Winkle
Kevin McCarthy “dreamed up” his contrafactual version of U.S. history. Would Native Americans agree that U.S. wars never resulted in land grabs?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/kevin-mccarthy-says-america-never-acquired-land-via-war

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said and done a lot of massively cringeworthy stuff over the last several years, including but not limited to:

Anyway, the former Speaker added a new entry to the “What kind of cringey stuff is Kevin up to today” archives on Sunday, when he posted a video to his X account in which he made clear that his knowledge of US history leaves…a lot to be desired!

Appearing in a tuxedo at an unnamed event—possibly a gathering of politicians who had their lips sewn to the worst president in modern history’s ass, possibly not—McCarthy declared: “In every single war that America has fought we have never asked for land afterwards except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for.”

pastedGraphic.png

Kevin McCarthy

@SpeakerMcCarthy

·

Follow

Think for one moment. In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterward—except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.

Readers added context

The US has acquired numerous territories through conflict, including:

1848, Mexico ceded 55% of its territory:

archives.gov/milestone-docu…

1898, Spain ceded Guam, Puerto Rico & The Philippines.

history.state.gov/milestones/186…

1899, US acquires American Samoa after the 2nd Samoan Civil War

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartit…

Context is written by people who use X, and appears when rated helpful by others.  Find out more.

8:36 PM · Nov 26, 2023

5.5K

Reply

Share

This, of course, is not true at all. After the Revolutionary War, the US doubled in size due to land relinquished by the British. After the Mexican-American war, the US took possession of present-day states California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. And after the Spanish-American War the US took over Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

Is McCarthy’s blunder embarrassing? Hugely! Is basic knowledge of this country’s history, how our government functions, and other lessons children learn in school a prerequisite for being a member of the modern Republican Party? Well, as his colleagues can attest, obviously not.

 

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

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

Read more of Bess and Vanity Fair at the above link.

Dumbing down American history, censorship, book banning, and teaching myths instead of truth are all part of the GOP agenda! Just look at what’s happening on some local school boards and libraries!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-28-23

🤯 WACKO PRIORITIES! — Huge Backlogs & Poor Public Service, Yet DOS Bureaucracy Finds Time To “Correct” Their Own “Mistake” From More Than 6 Decades Ago, Thus Making American Doctor “Stateless!”

Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy can obscure common sense!
ATTRIBUTION: Creative Commons 3.0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/25/virginia-doctor-passport-citizenship-nightmare/

Theresa Vargas reports in WashPost:

Theresa Vargas
Theresa Vargas
Reporter
Washington Post

Siavash Sobhani is stateless.

The Northern Virginia doctor knows at least that much about his situation. He knows he is no longer considered a citizen of the United States — the place where he was born, went to school and has practiced medicine for more than 30 years — and that he also belongs to no other place.

“I’m in limbo,” he told me on a recent afternoon.

In the past few years, there have been many passport-renewal nightmare stories, with processing delays forcing people to beg, lose sleep and miss once-in-a-lifetime trips. But what Sobhani has experienced this year after trying to renew his passport is uniquely unmooring.

As he tells it, when he sent in an application for a new passport in February, he had no reason to expect he’d face any difficulties. He had renewed his passport several times previously without problems. This time, it was set to expire in June, and he wanted to make sure he had a valid one in hand before his family took a trip in July.

But he did not receive a new passport. Instead, at the age of 61, he lost what he had held since he was an infant: U.S. citizenship.

A letter from a State Department official informed him that he should not have been granted citizenship at the time of his birth because his father was a diplomat with the Embassy of Iran. The letter directed Sobhani to a website where he could apply for lawful permanent residence.

“This was a shock to me,” said Sobhani, who specializes in internal medicine. “I’m a doctor. I’ve been here all my life. I’ve paid my taxes. I’ve voted for presidents. I’ve served my community in Northern Virginia. During covid, I was at work, putting myself at risk, putting my family at risk. So when you’re told after 61 years, ‘Oh there was a mistake, you’re no longer a U.S. citizen,’ it’s really, really shocking.”

. . . .

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

Read Theresa’s full article at the link.

Months for a routine passport renewal? If you’re lucky! The DOS has struggled to cope with a totally predictable and largely self-aggravated “crisis!” Who would have thought that after several years of pandemic isolation and with a booming economy, Americans would start traveling again in record numbers? Probably, everybody in America except ivory tower DOS bureaucrats who failed to prepare for the obvious and to elevate public service over intrasigence!

As a veteran of more than four decades of dealing with the immigration bureaucracy — from both the inside and outside — I can testify to the truth of the adage that “Some cans of worms are better left unopened!” (Corollary: “If you open it, you own it!”) Where’s the common sense here? Lost in the bureaucratic fog, 🌫️ I guess!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-2-23

🤯 POLITICS: (SADLY) YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! —  Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair With The (Very) Low Down On MAGAMIKE!

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/everything-to-know-about-mike-johnson?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_HIVE_102823&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67c363f92a41245df49eb&cndid=48297443&hasha=8a1f473740b253d8fa4c23b066722737&hashb=26cd42536544e247751ec74095d9cedc67e77edb&hashc=eb7798068820f2944081a20180a0d3a94e025b4a93ea9ae77c7bbe00367c46ef&esrc=newsletteroverlay&mbid=mbid%3DCRMVYF012019&source=EDT_VYF_NEWSLETTER_0_HIVE_ZZ&utm_campaign=VF_HIVE_102823&utm_term=VYF_Hive

Election Denial, “Sexual Anarchy,” Noah’s Ark: All the Mike Johnson Details We Regret to Inform You Of

By Bess LevinOctober 26, 2023

There’s a lot that’s concerning!

pastedGraphic.png

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On October 25, after several weeks that saw dysfunction, chaos, humiliation, and anonymous threats to at least one lawmaker’s wife, Republicans finally elected a Speaker of the House to succeed Kevin McCarthy: Mike Johnson, a representative from Louisiana who has the distinction of being the least experienced Speaker in more than a century.

At the time of Johnson’s accession, a lot of Americans likely had no idea who he was; actual Republican senator Susan Collins, for one, told a reporter she didn’t know Johnson but planned to remedy that by googling him. And if you weren’t familiar with Johnson, you might’ve assumed that that was maybe even a good thing—that he was just a quiet Republican who hadn’t gotten wrapped up in the insanity plaguing the GOP over the last seven or so years. He didn’t have the name recognition of, say, Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz, but perhaps that simply spoke to the fact that he wasn’t leading a series of absurd hearings in an attempt to take down Joe Biden; or bragging about being so devoted to Donald Trump that he answered his phone calls during sex. Maybe, you might have thought, he wasn’t someone you’d have to constantly worry about re: undermining democracy or trying to take away people’s rights.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with Johnson, who may not have been well known prior to being given one of the most powerful jobs in government but is very much someone whose extremist views and actions should keep you up at night.

Herein, a running list of the absolute most WTF things the new Speaker has said and done on everything from the 2020 election to abortion to LGBTQ+ rights and more.

Abortion

Johnson is proudly antiabortion. When Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, he called it “a great, joyous occasion,” later writing, “We will get the number of abortions [in Louisiana] to ZERO!!” As an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom, he worked on efforts to shut down abortion clinics in the state. In Congress, he cosponsored legislation that would have banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy, i.e., a time when many people do not even know they’re pregnant. He’s beloved by the antiabortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which has given him an A+ rating. In 2015, he blamed school shootings on abortion, telling writer Irin Carmon, “When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.”

Renew Vanity Fair
Plus, give a free gift subscription.

Renew today

In some real Handmaid’s Tale shit, he declared during a House hearing that if women were forced to have more children, a.k.a. “able-bodied” workers, there would be more funding for Social Security and Medicare:

On at least one occasion, he declared that doctors who perform abortions should be sentenced to “hard labor”:

Oh, and like many antiabortion zealots, Johnson doesn’t seem to like contraception either.

LGBTQ+ rights

Hoo boy, where to start? Here are some things that Johnson has said about LGBTQ+ people, same-sex marriage, and gay sex between consenting adults:

In his work as an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, Johnson also argued in court that same-sex couples should not receive domestic partnership benefits, and officially opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalize gay sex between consenting adults. In the Louisiana House of Representatives, he proposed a bill that critics say would have made it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. (In response, he claimed he was not a “bigot,” adding: “I know that I brought this bill for the right reason.”) Meanwhile, in Congress, he introduced a national bill seemingly modeled after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law; voted against the 2022 bipartisan bill to codify gay marriage; and last year cosponsored a bill making it a crime to provide gender-affirming care to anyone under 18, despite the American Academy of Pediatrics backing such care.

“I would be hard-pressed to think of a worse member to be elected Speaker of the House,” Allen Morris, policy director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, told The 19th.

Separation of church and state

If you guessed that Johnson doesn’t believe in it, you guessed right. In April—as in, just a few months before he was elected Speaker—the congressman railed against what he referred to as the “so-called separation of church and state,” saying, “The founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.”

In 2018, Johnson argued for prayer in public schools.

Evolution

In addition to blaming abortion for mass shootings, Johnson has also claimed that the teaching of evolution has played a part. In a 2016 sermon, he told the audience, “People say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’ Because we’ve taught a whole generation—a couple generations now—of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and [that] you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.”

In related news, a year prior, Johnson filed a lawsuit for an organization to receive tax subsidies to build a Noah’s Ark–focused theme park in Kentucky. “When the Ark Project sails, everybody will benefit,” he wrote in an op-ed, “even those who are stubbornly trying to sink it.” The Ark Encounter is operated by a fundamentalist Christian group that believes in creationism.

Climate

Where does Johnson, not exactly a man of science, land on global warming? Well, per The New York Times:

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the newly elected House Speaker, has questioned climate science, opposed clean energy, and received more campaign contributions from oil and gas companies than from any other industry last year. Even as other Republican lawmakers increasingly accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is dangerously heating the planet, the unanimous election of Mr. Johnson on Wednesday suggests that his views may not be out of step with the rest of his party.

A former constitutional lawyer, he does not sit on committees that decide the fate of major energy issues. But he has consistently voted against dozens of climate bills and amendments, opposing legislation that would require companies to disclose their risks from climate change and bills that would reduce leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells. He has voted for measures that would cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2017, Johnson opined: “The climate is changing, but the question is, is it being caused by natural cycles over the span of the earth’s history? Or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”

The 2020 election

By now you’ve likely heard that Johnson spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to overturn the 2020 election—an effort that included leading the amicus brief signed by more than 100 GOP lawmakers that asked the Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Johnson also objected to the certification of Biden’s win on January 6; his arguments for doing so were adopted by a significant number of Republicans, leading the Times to call him “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.” One day prior, per Politico, he told colleagues, “This is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I know I’ve prayed for each of you individually,” before pressing them to oppose the Electoral College results. Oh, and he was a Dominion truther:

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Where does Johnson stand on the 2020 election now? Before the floor vote, he refused to answer a reporter’s question about the matter, and after officially becoming Speaker, he did just the same:

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Not really the kind of endorsement you want these days

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Thank God the GOP is now free to get back to the important, not-at-all-made-up issues

X content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

Elsewhere!

Could Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker, Undermine the 2024 Election?

NYT • Read More

North Carolina Republicans Approve House Map That Flips at Least Three Seats

NYT • Read More

Georgia’s congressional map violates Voting Rights Act, court finds

Politico • Read More

Donald Trump’s 2020 Cronies Appear to Be Ditching Him One by One

Vanity Fair • Read More

Democrats plot end run around Tuberville blockade of military promotions

The Washington Post • Read More

Blake Masters announces House bid in Arizona, forgoing another run for Senate

Politico • Read More

“Get the right cases to the Supreme Court”: inside Charles Koch’s network

The Guardian • Read More

CEO Morning Routines Are Bananas. So I Tried a Few.

WSJ • Read More

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

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

Go on over to the Levin Report at the above link to get all the gory (perhaps an understatement) details on America’s Retrograde Speaker! 

MAGAMike often pretends as if the his interpretation of the Bible, not the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, were our founding document. 

But, believe it or not, the founding fathers were actually “revolutionaries,” not “reactionaries,” who overthrew tradition to arrive at a different place. In the process they incorporated what in those days were some “enlightenment” ideals to replace “traditionalist” regressive principles like the “divine” right of kings and a purely hierarchical society where there was no escape from the status assigned at birth!

One can debate the exact religious beliefs of the founders. But, they certainly foresaw a non-static society, open to change, and tolerating more than one viewpoint. They weren’t theocrats, and they weren’t wedded to the view that society can’t change and evolve to adapt to new norms and practical realities.

One could read the teachings of Christ as promoting love, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, perspective, and siding with society’s outcasts. MAGAMike and his zealots appear to have a quite different “take.” That’s their prerogative. But, they shouldn’t be allowed to impose their peculiar, wayward views on the rest of us.

Faced with his first national tragedy, and a chance to show some real guts, leadership, and humane, common-sense principles derived from Christianity, all the self-professed “Man of God” and “protector of the unborn” (but “rejector of the  born”) could muster was the same old trite “hearts and minds” garbage that flows from spineless GOP politicos. Compare MAGAMike with Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) who apologized and changed his position to favor an assault weapons ban. See, e.g., https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiJ35iN1puCAxVBk2oFHWs3CX8QvOMEKAB6BAgQEAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fpolitics%2F2023%2F10%2F26%2Fmaine-shooting-gun-control-laws%2F&usg=AOvVaw1NdJWXqX0pvd75g3dguKa_&opi=89978449.

Jesus would have valued assault weapons over human lives? Gimmie a break!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-29-23

🏴‍☠️🤮 “CHRISTIAN” WHITE NATIONALIST MAGAMIKE TAKES GOP TO NEW LOWS — Greg Sargent @ WashPost

 

MAGA MikeMAGA Mike

By Bruce Plante

Republished under license

Greg writes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-great-replacement-theory-house-speaker/

Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected House speaker, has repeatedly flirted with what’s known as the “great replacement theory,” the idea that Democrats are scheming to supplant American voters with immigrants. The Louisiana Republican’s views show how fringe conspiracy theories have gone mainstream in the Republican Party at the highest levels of power.

“This is the plan of our friends on this side — to turn all the illegals into voters,” Johnson said at a congressional hearing in May 2022, gesturing at Democrats. “That’s why the border’s open.”

The “open borders” trope is a lie, and while a few municipalities allow voting for noncitizens in local elections, in no sense do national Democrats have any such “plan” for “all the illegals.” As far as I can determine, no House speaker in recent memory has been quite as reckless and incendiary with this kind of language.

Johnson employs it regularly. He reiterated the claim in an interview this year with the right-wing outlet Newsmax, accusing President Biden of “intentionally” encouraging undocumented migration to “turn all these illegals into voters for their side.” On numerous other occasions, he has made similar charges, even declaring that Democrats’ express goal is the “destruction of our country at the expense of our own people.”

On immigration, as well as on abortion and gay rights, Johnson’s elevation is a triumph for the far right. It has been widely noted that Johnson doesn’t come across as a MAGA bomb-thrower, despite his extreme views. That’s true on immigration, too: He voices high-minded platitudes about how providing asylum to the persecuted is a noble ideal, but he’s a big booster of the wildly radical House GOP border bill that would functionally gut asylum entirely.

The pro-immigrant group America’s Voice, which tracks lawmakers’ positions on the issue, has not documented any comparable rhetoric in Johnson’s predecessor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy. “Johnson has gone farther than most of his Republican colleagues in elevating alarmist and dangerous rhetoric,” says Vanessa Cardenas, the group’s executive director.

Other predecessors, such as John A. Boehner and Paul D. Ryan, were supporters — nominally, at least — of reforms that would legalize large numbers of undocumented immigrants, though they ultimately failed to deliver. Not even Newt Gingrich, the most extreme House speaker of the modern era, went as far as Johnson, says Nicole Hemmer, author of a history of conservatism in the 1990s.

“Even at his most anti-immigrant, he spoke largely in fiscal and law-and-order terms,” Hemmer told me, while eschewing the “eliminationist rhetoric” at the core of great replacement theory.

Yet little by little, those more extreme ideas have penetrated GOP leadership circles. In 2021, Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a top House Republican, charged Democrats with scheming to replace conservative voters with Democratic-leaning immigrants.

. . . .

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

Greg Sargent
Greg Sargent
Opinion Writer
Washington Post

Read Greg’s full column at the link.

Bigot, racist, theocrat, misogynist, liar, election denier, anti-democracy zealot — “MagaMike” is the disgraceful embodiment of today’s extremist GOP. Just when we think that the GOP can’t sink any lower, they surprise us!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-28-23

🚩POLITICS: GOP’S BAKUNINIST CLOWN SHOW SOWS AMERICAN CHAOS!🤮☠️

Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)Anarchist PHOTO: Wikipedia While nobody in today’s GOP is close to being on an intellectual level with the “Father of Modern Anarchy,” they are staunch disciples of his disruptive philosophy.
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876)
Anarchist
PHOTO: Wikipedia
While nobody in today’s GOP is close to being on an intellectual level with the “Father of Modern Anarchy,” they are staunch disciples of his disruptive philosophy.

BAKUNINIST — One who advocates revolutionary anarchism. 

Jackie Calmes in the LA Times:

Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes
National Columnist
LA Times
PHOTO: Shorenstein Center, Harvard University

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=0544106b-7413-483c-9f58-c0b43ca7853d

. . . .

And that’s because so many in the party — elected officials and voters — won’t be led. Republicans have the majority in the House, but it’s a majority in name only. In reality, the House Republicans are an amalgam of competing factions, from right to far-right to extremist, and party members genuinely loathe one another more than they dislike Democrats.

Conservative media and social media stardom have turned even the most junior and otherwise inconsequential figures — say, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, the architect of this speaker-less anarchy — into power brokers who insist on having their sway. Like-minded conservative voters — small-dollar donors steeped in Fox News — bankroll the chaos agents; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, that Georgia peach of a provocateur, is among Congress’ most successful fundraisers.

Here’s how insurgent and “Beetlejuice” fan Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado explained why House Republicans have failed to agree on a speaker: “There are 224 alpha males and alpha females who are here in the Republican Party. We are here because we convinced hundreds of thousands of people that we are leaders.”

No matter how this speaker mess ends — and it must somehow end — that perverse reward system will remain. And the House under Republican “leadership” will be all but ungovernable through the 2024 election.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a similarly thin Democratic majority yet managed to keep her party factions united and to shepherd into law major legislation, some of it bipartisan. But here’s the difference: Democrats believe in governance. Too many Republicans do not; their credo has shifted over the last quarter century from small government to anti-government. We’re watching the result.

Again, take it from a Republican: “Frankly, it doesn’t matter who the speaker is,” Rep. Mike Lawler of New York said, “because if we [Republicans] can’t govern as a group, as a conference, it doesn’t matter.”

Jordan, true to his brand as a belligerent, on Friday insisted on a third House vote for speaker. As widely predicted, he lost by even more votes than on the earlier ballots. He and his allies talked of pressing his candidacy through the weekend; after all, McCarthy was elected in January on the 15th ballot. But in a closed-door caucus and with secret ballots, Republicans voted to yank Jordan’s nomination as speaker.

His refusal to accept that he was not going to be speaker until the reality was forced on him was hardly a surprise. Jordan still won’t concede that Donald Trump lost reelection. He declined to do so yet again at a news conference Friday morning. His stubborn opposition to democracy — that’s what it is — only underscored why Jordan should never be the speaker.

The sad fact, however, is that Jordan’s reprehensible role as Trump’s chief congressional lieutenant in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection wasn’t even much of a factor in opponents’ thinking. Nor was the fact that as speaker, this unrepentant election denier could have sabotaged the certification of the 2024 presidential vote if the Republican lost.

Instead, the reasons Jordan’s foes gave were personal, political or both. Some blamed him for stoking the death threats against them and their families. One, Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia, said Republicans don’t “need a bully as the speaker.”

But they need someone — the country needs someone — so Congress can function. Government funding runs out Nov. 17. Biden is sending a request for aid to Ukraine and Israel. Other essential legislation, including agriculture and defense bills, are pending.

Many Republicans are trying to shift the blame for the fiasco onto Democrats because they all opposed McCarthy and then Jordan — as if Republicans would’ve voted to retain Pelosi had an insurgent Democrat ever moved, like Gaetz did against McCarthy, to unseat her.

But they know the blame actually lies with themselves — thus the name-calling and near-fisticuffs.

They need to come together, if only temporarily. And then voters should fire them in 2024.

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

Today’s GOP is a thuggy gang of anarchists out to destroy America and destabilize the world — mostly because they believe they can, and complicit GOP voters have inflicted these ignorant, valueless, yet existentially dangerous, clowns upon the rest of us!

Totally classless and obstructionist till the end, Jordan forced his colleagues to vote to rescind his never-viable nomination for Speaker after losing three floor votes by increasing margins. By contrast, Scalise, the Conference’s initial nominee over Jordan withdrew without a vote upon determining that he lacked the votes to win the job.

Appearing on CNN Sunday, former GOP Representative Liz Cheney described some of her erstwhile colleagues as “White supremacists,” “anti-semitic,” and “involved directly” in the illegitimate attempt to seize power and overturn Biden’s election. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/liz-cheney-kevin-mccarthy-house-gop_n_6535ea7ce4b0689b3fbcfc66.

Yet, inexplicably, some in the “mainstream media”continue to treat the GOP as a “normal” opposition party. In one of a continuing string of jaw-droppingly poor choices for guests, NBC’s Kristen Walker gave deposed ex-Speaker McCarthy a forum to engage in a “Trumpian liefest” of mythic proportions, outrageously attempting to blame Dems, the Border, Biden, Jeffries, the GOP insurrectionists he empowered, and just about anyone but himself for the debacle he helped engineer and his morally bankrupt party carried out!

Every viewer should have felt dumber after watching Welker fruitlessly try to control the astounding stream of lies, nonsense, doublespeak, and intentional misrepresentations coming out of McCarthy. Honestly, that’s what Fox News, Breitbart, and the Examiner are for! No need to give shallow politicos with absolutely nothing to contribute another forum! I’ve always been a Kristen Welker fan, but her first month as moderator of Meet the Press can only be described as something between tragic and horrible.

As Calmes says, “fire [the GOP] in 2024.” The future of America, the world, and humanity might depend on the n common sense and decency of the majority of voters!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-23-23

🎶 LEADING WITH MUSIC: 1) Taylor Swift Is A One-Woman $5.7 Billion Economic Stimulus Program! — 2) Gene Woods, A CEO Who Plays A Mean Guitar!

Taylor Swift
T. Swift, Entertainer, Entrepreneur, Economic Dynamo! LOS ANGELES – Swift at 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 14, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Glenn Francis/Pacific Pro Digital Photography) Creative Commons License.

 

The Economy (Taylor’s Version)

Taylor Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour — set to bring in more money than any other concert in American history — is heading to 8,500 movie theaters this weekend. 

By Abha Bhattarai, Rachel Lerman and Emily Sabens

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/13/taylor-swift-eras-tour-money-jobs/

Call it a gold rush: Taylor Swift is adding billions to the U.S. economy.

Swift’s record-shattering Eras Tour is set to be the most lucrative concert run in American history. But the massive production not only provided a jolt of money to sold-out stadiums — it also infused the American economy with a trickle-down flow of cash.

Now, as the show heads to movie theaters this weekend, millions more will experience — and shell out cold, hard cash for — a moment with Swift.

As she hits the silver screen, here’s a look at The Economy (Taylor’s Version).

The biggest windfall is headed straight to Swift, who stands to make as much as $4.1 billion from the Eras Tour, according to estimates from Peter Cohan, an associate professor of management at Babson College.

That’s assuming the pop star ends up keeping the standard artist’s share of roughly 85 percent of her tour’s revenue, with average ticket prices of $456. Swift’s earnings would be the most from a single tour for any musical act to date — and more than the yearly economic output of 42 countries, including Liberia, which has more than 5 million people.

But the impact of the Eras Tour extends far beyond what Swift takes home. In one of the few efforts to assess spending by concertgoers, software company QuestionPro quizzed 592 Swifties who responded to an opt-in online survey. Based on their answers and average concert attendance, the company estimates that Swift’s fans spent about $93 million per show — yes, on tickets, but also on merchandise, travel, hotels, food and outfits.

Add all that up, and by the end of the U.S. tour, you’ve got a $5.7 billion boost to the country’s economy. That’s enough to give $440 to each person in Swift’s home state of Pennsylvania. Or almost enough to send every American a $20 bill.

. . . .

The tour’s economic boost spread far past the walls of Swift’s stadium venues, as fans traveled from near and far to any show they could get their hands on. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia even put the Swift effect in a report — saying concertgoers provided a sizable boost to hotel revenue in May.

Hotels, restaurants and shops around the country felt the upswing, with millions of dollars flowing into the 20 U.S. cities Swift visited this summer. Cincinnati estimated that it would see about $48 million in additional economic impact, according to Visit Cincy and the Cincinnati Regional Chamber’s Center for Research and Data.

In Los Angeles, where Swift performed six shows, the California Center for Jobs and the Economy predicted a $320 million boost to the county. Kansas City tourism organization Visit KC said the region got an estimated $48 million impact from the tour’s July stop. The Common Sense Institute, which studies the state of Colorado’s economy, predicted the boom from Swift’s Denver performances would add up to $140 million statewide.

“The [Eras Tour] was a shot in the arm to a part of the regional economy that’s really been lagging,” said Mike Kahoe, chief economist for the California center. “It brought some much-needed dollars to the tourism industry.”

Hotel analytics group STR calculated tour cities produced a $208 million bump in hotel room revenue, over and above normal seasonal levels.

In Seattle, Swift set a record for single-day revenue for downtown hotels — notching $7.4 million, about $2 million more than the record set during a Major League Baseball All-Star Game earlier the same month, according to Visit Seattle and STR.

“To put the impact into context, $208 million is basically the combined room revenue generated in New York City and Philadelphia in one week,” STR senior research analyst M. Brian Riley wrote. And that’s just for the actual nights of the tour, not including fans who arrived early or stayed longer.

. . . .

Not only are there more jobs in and around Eras stadiums, but they pay better, too: The average hourly rate offered on Instawork within a five-mile radius of Swift’s May 13 show in Philadelphia was $20.57, $2 higher than usual.

There have been longer-term lifts in employment, too. In Los Angeles, Swift’s six-day stop was estimated to generate enough revenue to fund 3,300 new jobs, according to the California Center for Jobs and the Economy. That would be enough to staff every bookstore and news stand in the L.A. area.

. . . .

Swift also passed on some of that karma — and cash — to her employees.

She gave every truck driver on the tour an extra $100,000 this summer, and she gifted bonuses to sound technicians, caterers, dancers and other staff, People magazine reported in August.

. . . .

Eras, too, is onto its next phase. In November, the pop star will take her 146-show tour international, with stops in South America, Asia, Australia and Europe. But first, Swift heads to the movies — where global pre-sales have already surpassed $100 million, according to AMC. Fans, the movie chain said, are turning up “from the largest cities to the smallest towns.”

Long story short: Swift’s economic dominance is about to begin again.

About this story:

The following songs are referenced in this story:

Abha Bhattarai became a Swiftie during the pandemic, when she listened to “Evermore” and “Folklore” on repeat.

Rachel Lerman managed to get tickets for Swift’s Munich show, where she will be embracing her “1989” era.

Emily Sabens became a Swiftie at age 10 while performing songs from the debut album in her basement with her cousin. She was blessed with “Haunted” as a surprise song at the Eras Tour in Detroit.

Editing by Karly Domb Sadof (who is still trying to get her Eras Tour tickets), Betty Chavarria (who has a song named after her), Jennifer Liberto (mom of a Swiftie), Mike Madden (who is not a Swiftie — yet), Paola Ruano (who is going to the Eras Tour for a second time in London) and Haley Hamblin (who promises to finally listen to 1989 soon).

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

Eugene “Gene” Woods
Eugene “Gene” Woods
“Front Man”
Gene Woods and the Soul Alliance
CEO
Advocate Health
PHOTO: Business North Carolina

Healthcare CEO ditches tie, dons guitar to moonlight as jazz player

https://www.today.com/video/healthcare-ceo-ditches-tie-dons-guitar-to-moonlight-as-jazz-player-196156997878

Gene Woods is a prominent healthcare CEO whose successful side gig as the front man for the jazz band Gene Woods and the Soul Alliance has him strapping on a guitar to pursue a life-long passion of spreading healing in a powerful way. NBC’s Anne Thompson shares his story in this week’s Sunday Spotlight.

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

Read, listen, watch at the above links. 

Swift is an example of “trickle down economics” actually working. That probably has to do with her personality and generosity.

Music gets the job done!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-22-23

😎 🇺🇸 HOPE FRIDAY: The Common Good W/ Robert Reich — Maine Prepares To  Welcome More Refugees — Austin Kocher On Keeping Faith During The Age Of Trumpist White Nationalist Hatred & Lies!

Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Former US Secretary of Labor
Professor of Public Policy
CAL Berkeley
Creative Commons License

From Robert Reich on Substack:

https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly9yb2JlcnRyZWljaC5zdWJzdGFjay5jb20vcC9hLWZpbmFsLXdvcmQtYWJvdXQtdGhlLWNvbW1vbi1nb29kP3V0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1lbWFpbC1wb3N0JnI9MzMwejcmdG9rZW49ZXlKMWMyVnlYMmxrSWpvMU1UZ3dNRGd6TENKd2IzTjBYMmxrSWpveE16YzFOemMyTnprc0ltbGhkQ0k2TVRZNU56YzRPVEEzTlN3aVpYaHdJam94TnpBd016Z3hNRGMxTENKcGMzTWlPaUp3ZFdJdE16WTFOREl5SWl3aWMzVmlJam9pY0c5emRDMXlaV0ZqZEdsdmJpSjkuNVlqTFo4OWZJMUVaalJQVWp4SlczejczbGY0bXpGNXRyN2V4WkQ1QkVuZyIsInAiOjEzNzU3NzY3OSwicyI6MzY1NDIyLCJmIjpmYWxzZSwidSI6NTE4MDA4MywiaWF0IjoxNjk3Nzg5MDc1LCJleHAiOjE3MDAzODEwNzUsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0wIiwic3ViIjoibGluay1yZWRpcmVjdCJ9.YI3yXyy6J0uje-L2r-wh7kLsh8LeAZQ2K9oq40sSau0?

. . . .

Many Americans today worry that our nation is losing its national identity. Yet the core of that identity is not the whiteness of our skin or our religion or our ethnicity. 

It is the ideals we share, the good we hold in common. 

That common good is a set of shared commitments. To the rule of law. To democracy. To tolerance of our differences. To equal political rights and equal opportunity. To participating in our civic life. To sacrificing for the ideals we hold in common. To upholding the truth. 

We cannot have a functioning society without these shared commitments. Without a shared sense of common good, there can be no “we” to begin with. 

If we are losing our national identity, it is because we are losing our sense of the common good. This is what must be restored.

As I’ve argued in these essays, recovering our common good depends on several things:

It depends on establishing a new ethic of leadership based on trusteeship. Leaders must be judged not by whether they score a “win” for their side, but whether they strengthen democratic institutions and increase public trust.

It depends on honoring those who have invested in the common good, and holding accountable those who have exploited it for their own selfish ends. 

It requires that we understand — and educate our children about — what we owe one another as members of the same society. Instead of focusing solely on the rights of citizenship, we need also to focus on the duties of citizenship. 

And it requires a renewed commitment to truth.

Some of you may feel such a quest to be hopeless. The era we are living in offers too many illustrations of greed, narcissism, brutality, and hatefulness.

I, however, firmly believe this quest is not hopeless. 

Almost every day, I witness or hear of the compassion and generosity of ordinary Americans. Their actions rarely make headlines, but they constitute much of our daily life together. 

The challenge is to turn all this into a new public spiritedness extending to the highest reaches in the land — a public morality that strengthens our democracy, makes our economy work for everyone, and revives trust in the major institutions of the nation.

The moral fiber of our society has been weakened but it has not been destroyed. 

We can recover the rule of law and preserve our democratic institutions by taking a more active role in politics. 

We can fight against all forms of bigotry. We can strengthen the bonds that connect us to one another by reaching out to one another. We can help resurrect civility by acting more civilly toward those with whom we disagree. 

We can protect the truth by using facts and logic to combat lies. 

We can help restore the common good by striving for it and showing others it’s worth the effort. 

We have never been a perfect union. Our finest moments have been when we sought to live up to our shared ideals. 

I worked for Robert F. Kennedy a half-century ago when the common good was better understood. Resurrecting it may take another half-century, or more. 

But as the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history.”

Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope you’ve found these essays useful and even on occasion inspiring. I hope you’ll join me in carrying forward the fight for the common good. 

***

Subscribers to this newsletter are keeping it going. If you are able, please consider a paid or gift subscription. And we always appreciate your sharing our content with others and leaving your thoughts in the comments.

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

Kelly Bouchrd
Kelly Bouchard
Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald
PHOTO: Linkedin

From Kelly Bouchard in the Portland Press Herald:

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/17/maine-refugee-resettlement-numbers-expected-to-double/

. . . .

COMMUNITY OUTREACH IN MAINE

Despite the uncertainty, resettlement agencies in Maine are pushing ahead, preparing to welcome as many refugees as possible. To increase their chances of finding affordable apartments, they’re building a network of landlords willing to rent to newcomers and expanding resettlement efforts beyond Greater Portland, Lewiston-Auburn and Augusta-Waterville to Bangor and Brunswick, Ouattara said.

“We can settle people within 100 miles of Lewiston-Auburn,” said Rilwan Osman, executive director of Maine Immigrant & Refugee Services in Lewiston. “We have settled some families in Augusta, and we are exploring other communities.”

The State Refugee Advisory Council held four quarterly meetings last year to connect and support various community representatives in government, public safety, schools, social services and health care, Ouattara said.

“There are resources that are available from the federal government to assist communities that accept refugees,” he said.

At least half of the new arrivals last year had family ties in Maine, Ouattara said, while the other half were “free cases” that could be resettled more widely in the state but would require more support from agency staff. Transportation continues to be a challenge for many newcomers.

“The public transit system in Maine is still in development, so that can be isolating in some communities,” he said.

Helping refugees find jobs is a top priority for resettlement agencies, which provide financial assistance and case management support for up to 90 days after arrival and limited case management and employment services for up to 60 months.

“All the refugees that are coming have permission to work as soon as they are able,” Osman said. “Some have English skills, some don’t. If they have the necessary language skills, they can at least start entry-level work within 90 days.”

One refugee who is eager to get to work is Ahmed, a recent arrival from Somalia who also declined to give his last name. Ahmed, 58, attended a cultural orientation session Wednesday at the JCA. Through an interpreter, Ahmed said he has been reunited with his wife and six children after being separated from them for 21 years.

He also said he wants to be a good citizen and a taxpayer.

“I’m so grateful to be here,” he said. “My dream is to settle in and get work at a job in my skill range. I am a welder and I would like to work in the same industry.”

Staff Photographer Brianna Soukup contributed to this report.

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

Grace Benninghof
Grace Benninghoff
Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald
PHOTO: PPH website

Grace Benninghoff in the Portland Press Herald:

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/19/portland-mayoral-candidates-frustrated-with-federal-work-rules-as-asylum-seekers-look-to-start-new-lives/

. . . .

Pious Ali says people will keep coming though.

“America is a beautiful country and has a lot to offer the world and the people who come here, and so does Portland,” said Ali, who came to the United States from Ghana more than two decades ago.

Portland’s five mayoral candidates may be more aligned on this issue than any other. They all fundamentally see asylum seekers as an asset to the city, and they all want to see the wait time before they can work made much shorter. They all also feel a little bit helpless.

For years, Portland has welcomed these immigrants, who often undertake dangerous journeys to get here and then go through an arduous, sometimes yearslong process to get visas and work authorization.

. . . .

Zarro said that if it should turn out to be too big a legal risk to offer asylum seekers paid work before they got federal work authorization, he would like to build a more robust job training program so they would be ready to start work in local businesses as soon as their work authorization comes though.

“We have people who are coming here to better their lives and to better their communities. Maine stands to benefit significantly,” he said.

All the candidates also are keenly aware that Portland is in need of more young workers.

“We’re an aging state without enough people to fill the workforce,” Costa said.

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

Austin Kocher, Ph.D.
Austin Kocher, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
TRAC-Syracuse
PHOTO: Syracuse U.

Abstract of Austin Kocher, PhD’s article “Welcoming the stranger in Trump’s America: Notes on the everyday processes of constructing and enduring sanctuary:”

https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/hosp_00050_1

Geographers have begun to explore the concept of ‘immigrant welcome’ as a framework for understanding the tension between spontaneous social support for immigrants and refugees and their subsequent restriction and criminalization by states. Overlooked in the emerging discourse on immigrant welcome is the rich literature in feminist geography that views the everyday practices of endurance, care and social reproduction as essential to, but often hidden within, more traditional, political and economic analyses of power. By focusing on the everyday practices of welcome within sanctuary church activism, I argue for more attention to the energy-intense work that is often excluded from official media and academic accounts, yet which is essential to understanding what makes welcome function or fail. I draw upon one in-depth case study of a sanctuary church in Ohio, where a woman has been living for a year and a half in public defiance of her deportation order. In addition to contextualizing this specific case within the broader policy and immigrant rights landscape, I focus on the spatial, material and relational processes that participants implemented to construct a ‘welcoming’ environment as well as observe the ways in which welcome fails to live up to its imagined potential. The case study provides important grounded insights into the material, relational and emotional processes of enduring sanctuary as a form of resistance to the US deportation regime and enduring sanctuary itself as an intensive socio-spatial form of existence.

© 2022 Intellect Ltd

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

Read more about each of these inspiring efforts at the respective links above.

Compare what could be if folks put aside hate and worked together to solve human problems with the pathetic, totally selfish, inept, inane, yet existentially dangerous, “Clown Show” 🤡 in the GOP House Conference egged on by their “leader” — congenital liar, bully, insurrectionist buffoon, and criminal defendant Donald Trump.🤮

What’s missing is more dynamic, courageous, truth-based national leadership on immigration and human rights issues from Dems (although, to be fair, the bipartisan Maine delegation — and many Maine Republicans — appear to “get it”)! But, fortunately, that void hasn’t stopped members of the NDPA from “soldiering on” for the commn good and a better America!

A life saved is a life saved! Sometimes, we just have to focus on the daily victories we can achieve!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-20-23

🤯ABSURDIST HEADLINE OF THE DAY — “SOME REPUBLICANS LOSE FAITH IN JIM JORDAN” — Apparently being “architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and an insurrection insider” (per Rep. Pete Aguillar (D-California) in NY Daily News) wasn’t enough to get dangerous, anti-democracy right wing zany over the finish line — yet! More threats and “enhanced arm-twisting” (a/k/a “arm breaking”) in line for Ohio’s notorious “political terrorist?”

“EvilClown”
“Does this guy inspire confidence in you?”
“Evil Clown”
By Tom Woodward
Creative Commons License

From AP:

Some Republicans Lose Faith In Jim Jordan

Republicans are starting to lose faith in Jordan, several of them told reporters after the Ohio congressman failed to muster enough support during the first round of voting.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (Fla.), who voted against him, called Jordan’s chances “shaky,” while Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), who voted for Jordan, said he does not “see how he can recover” with so many defectors on the first round of voting.

Jordan’s supporters also told Fox Newsthat they’re losing confidence in him. “I’m afraid there will be more votes against him,” an unnamed senior Republican told the network.

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

At least for the moment, the far right/Fox News threats and high pressure campaign appears to have backfired. But, the process isn’t over. And, that 200 Republicans voted for this spectacularly unqualified candidate for Speaker is bad for America.

As well-stated by Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast:

It’s been reality-TV central lately in the halls of Congress—wacky stunts, wild rants, and a mystery baby. But like the prospect of Speaker Jim Jordan, the party’s antics are hardly entertaining.

https://link.vanityfair.com/view/5bd67c363f92a41245df49ebjoaw2.4jj/61bc881e

In the end, as Molly says, the GOP’s clown show is 🤡 no laughing matter for America and the process of responsible government.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-17-23

🏴‍☠️🤮 SURPRISE: NIHILISTS CAN’T GOVERN — INCOMPETENT, UNINTERESTED — With Wars Raging, GOP Clown Show On Full Display, As Scalise Withdraws!🤡

Clown Car
“GOP House Conference en route to Capitol.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ellin Beltz, 07-04-16, Creative Commons License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Creator not responsible for above caption.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/us/politics/scalise-jordan-house-speaker.html

By Luke Broadwater

Reporting from the Capitol

Oct. 12, 2023

Updated 8:57 p.m. ET

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana withdrew on Thursday from consideration for the speakership he was on the cusp of claiming after hard-line Republicans balked at rallying around their party’s chosen candidate, leaving the House leaderless and the G.O.P. in chaos.

After being narrowly nominated for speaker during a Wednesday closed-door secret-ballot contest among House Republicans, Mr. Scalise, their No. 2 leader, found himself far from the 217 votes needed to be elected on the House floor. Many supporters of his challenger, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the right-wing Republican endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, refused to switch their allegiance.

With no clear end in sight to the G.O.P. infighting that has left one chamber of Congress paralyzed at a time of challenges at home and abroad, Mr. Scalise said he would step aside in hopes that someone else could unite the fractious party.

“I just shared with my colleagues that I was withdrawing my name as a candidate for speaker-designee,” Mr. Scalise said. “If you look at where our conference is, there’s still work to be done. Our conference still has to come together, and it’s not there. There are still some people that have their own agendas.”

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

With two wars involving our allies raging and the USG on track to run out of funding in a month, the GOP focuses on what’s important to them: THEMSELVES!

The GOP is a national disgrace and an international menace! They have brought the same disorder, callous disregard for the common good, and wacko, selfish, far right minority agenda to national politics that they have to the states they misgovern.

The GOP also also threatens America’s standing and influence on the world stage. The only thing standing between us and disaster is President Biden’s determination to lead and govern despite the GOP’s disgraceful chaos and betrayal of the common good!

And remember, it’s not like Scalise, who has coddled White Supremacists — once comparing himself to Klanster David Duke — and is a lifetime shill for a divisive far/right extremist agenda, was qualified to be Speaker. He was, at best, “slightly less unqualified” than insurrectionist election denier and Trump toady Jim Jordan!

As for Trump, his incoherent, hateful, anti-democracy rantings and unhinged ravings shows why the GOP he controls is an existential problem for American democracy. See, e.g.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/12/hamas-israel-biden-trump/

Just vote ‘em out, vote ‘em out!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-13-23

🤡 THE CLOWNING OF AMERICA: AS McCARTHY SLITHERS 🐍 OFF, WHO WILL BE THE “NEXT CLOWN UP?” — Who Would Want To Be? 🤮 — “The moment he began to negotiate with the caucus terrorists in order to secure his seat, he sowed the seeds of his ultimate destruction.”

Clown Court
“Speaker in Waiting”
PHOTO: Clown Civertan.jpg, Creative Commons License

Jay Kuo in “The Status Kuo” on Substack:

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/ousted?utm_campaign=email-post&r=330z7&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

It wasn’t supposed to end this way for Kevin McCarthy. After all, he had done nearly everything that the far-right faction of his caucus wanted, given in to their every demand. Why ever would that fail to satisfy them? But in the end, his actions recalled the parable of the scorpion and the frog. As Fortune magazine retold it,

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature.

It is the nature of nihilistic, burn-it-to-the-ground extremists to destroy everything around them, including the very party that once carried them to victory. McCarthy’s mistake was thinking he could ever change that by actually inviting the crazies in and embracing them even closer. Instead, he became the first ever speaker in the 240-year history of the House of Representatives to be ousted. In a period of historic firsts—first president impeached twice, first president to be indicted (and charged 91 times), and now first successful motion to vacate the chair—the GOP seems determined to outdo itself.

As writer Charlotte Clymer colorfully put it, “McCarthy served 270 days, the equivalent of 27 scaramuccis or 0.093 of a pelosi, after giving away his power—and his dignity—to man-toddlers who eventually stabbed him in the back.”

Let’s look at what happened yesterday and then answer some common questions about where things go from here in the GOP’s fractured majority in the House.

Subscribe

Mean Girls Day

October 3rd is a day that sticks in my mind because of my favorite movie, Mean Girls, which is turning out to carry many lessons for the GOP. The Lincoln Project was out with a meme quickly.

“On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was!” exclaims Cady Heron of the dreamy Aaron Samuels.

“It’s Kevin McCarthy’s last day as Speaker,” Cady responds.

Indeed, it was.

After Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) made good on his promise to file a motion to vacate the chair, McCarthy pressed for quick consideration of the motion, rebuffing calls to wait until Thursday when more members were back in Washington. He apparently had hoped to catch a number of Democratic House members away. Nancy Pelosi missed the votes, for example, because she was attending the funeral of her longtime friend, the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

No matter. After first losing a procedural vote to table the motion, with 11 Republicans voting “no” along with all the Democrats present, Kevin McCarthy faced a full vote of the House and was removed by a vote of 216 to 210, with eight GOP members joining all of the Democrats. Even Gretchen Wieners—er, I mean, Nancy Mace (R-SC)—who styles herself as a moderate, was a yea on the motion. Et tu, Nancy?

It bears noting that the Democrats had met as a group earlier that day and emerged with a consensus that they would not be helping McCarthy out. There was simply too much bad blood, from his kissing Trump’s ring two weeks after condemning him for January 6; to his reneging on the budget deal struck in May; to his launch of an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden based on nothing but speculation; to his blaming the Democrats for the near shutdown of the government, when it was Democrats who had kept it open. They simply did not trust him and saw no reason to throw him a lifeline. In fact, he never even asked for help from them directly, though his minions reportedly made a series of calls begging moderate Democrats to save him.

After the vote, several members of the House Republican caucus gathered in a group to pray on the House floor, while Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), wept openly. It was quite a fall for Rep. Wagner, who had triumphantly spearheaded two anti-abortion measures earlier in the year with Speaker McCarthy’s blessing.

McCarthy’s loss of the speakership leaves the GOP caucus effectively without leadership, at a time when appropriations remain largely unfinished.

The Speaker pro tempore

The gavel is currently in the hands of a caretaker Speaker pro tempore, Patrick T. McHenry (R-NC), who gaveled out the evening with such ferocity that he damn near cracked the thing. It’s a good thing men aren’t emotional in politics.

McHenry is supposed to hold the position only so long as it takes to elect a new speaker, and to wield the gavel only for purposes of getting this done. But he couldn’t help but act like yet another petulant man-baby, ordering Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi to clear out her office in the Capitol building and relocate to the Cannon Building. Pelosi issued a response:

With all of the important decisions that the new Republican Leadership must address, which we are all eagerly awaiting, one of the first actions taken by the new Speaker Pro Tempore was to order me to immediately vacate my office in the Capitol. Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time.

Petty moves aside, McHenry won’t have any real power to push legislation through, and few even inside the GOP would likely stand for him seeking to assert himself in any way except as a momentary caretaker.

So what happens next?

With McCarthy out, the GOP is back to where it was in January, without the numbers to put someone over the top. One key piece of news that already broke: McCarthy won’t be running for the job again.

That leaves a number of possible replacements. The No. 2 in the House is Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is well liked but faces health challenges, as he is currently undergoing treatment for blood cancer. Other names that have bubbled up include Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and the No. 3 guy in charge of this mess, Tom Emmer (R-MN).

There is no consensus candidate as of this moment. The House GOP members scattered to their districts on Tuesday night after the debacle, giving a cooling off period before they regroup next week.

Isn’t the devil we know better?

There is considerable and understandable consternation that we might wind up with someone worse than McCarthy, whose feckless cowardice at least led to predictable capitulations and back to the inevitable point of political equilibrium.

But it’s also fair to say that even someone more extreme, like a Jim Jordan, couldn’t actually do anything with this fractured majority beyond what McCarthy already did with it. A House majority without a Senate in concurrence can accomplish little other than hearings and inquiries, which is what the GOP has been up to for months already with nothing to show for it. Handing the keys to the bus to someone else who doesn’t know how to drive isn’t going to keep the party from catastrophe next November.

It also might take some time before they can coalesce around a new leader. Extremists want someone to the right of McCarthy, but moderates might never support such a candidate. And even assuming they did, the party would quickly find itself exactly where it is now: facing a government shutdown while it tries to renege on a deal already agreed to, and up against a Democratically-controlled Senate ready to get on with the business of governing.

The political fallout

The collapse of GOP leadership in the House likely will become a central talking point for Democrats for the 2024 elections. The GOP brand is already badly tarnished by everything from anti-abortion extremism to election denialism to authoritarian suppression.

One thing is clear, however: It was Trump, acting behind the scenes by pressing extremists to hold the line against the budget, who is in large part to blame for the destruction of the House GOP caucus. He won’t take ownership of that, of course, but the amount of damage he has inflicted upon his own party cannot be overstated.

And in a weird twist, some members of the far-right are moving to nominate Donald Trump as Speaker. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) announced late Tuesday he will file paperwork to nominate the former president to be the next Speaker, who in fact doesn’t have to be a member of the body to preside as Speaker. In the past Trump has said he would not be interested in the job, so it’s unclear whether he would take such a nomination seriously. But it does demonstrate how rudderless and leaderless the House GOP caucus is that they once again turn to their Dear Leader to beg him to rescue them. (Trump of course wouldn’t know the first thing about how to act as Speaker, or move legislation through, or count votes, nor would he have time to learn the ropes given his trial schedule. Perhaps they could recruit his son Eric, who at least is foolish enough to accept and might soon have nothing to do because all his businesses have had their certificates to operate in the state canceled.)

That plan might run smack into the GOP’S own House rules, though, which requires leadership to step aside if indicted for a felony with a punishment of more than two years.

Returning to the scorpion and frog fable, and looking back at his tragic and brief tenure, McCarthy’s political death was inevitable. The moment he began to negotiate with the caucus terrorists in order to secure his seat, he sowed the seeds of his ultimate destruction. After all, under the terms of his parole, a single missed frog step could bring down a motion to vacate by a single member. By May, McCarthy had already committed the giant sin of compromising with the Democrats in a near evenly divided government, and a few months later, a single MAGA scorpion planted its stinger right into his back.

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

Of course, it’s supreme irony that about the only responsible leadership action McCarthy took during his short tenure as speaker led to his demise at the hands of the GOP anti-American nihilists whom he coddled and ingratiated himself with to get the job in the first place!

At some point, the anti-American GOP voters who put these dangerous, yet cowardly, spineless, and valueless, nut cases into positions of influence have to be held accountable, if only by history! 🏴‍☠️

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-04-23

😢🗽🇺🇸 HUMANITARIAN CRISIS DEMANDS HUMANE RESPONSE: GOP DEMAGOGUERY, DEM INDIFFERENCE TO SUFFERING WON’T GET THE JOB DONE! 🤯 NGO’s Once Again Step Up To Do The USG’S Job! — They Need Help! ⛑️

Immigrant Defenders
Immigrant Defenders help humanity at the border, treating fellow humans with dignity, respect, kindness.
PHOTO: Linkedin

Immigrant Defenders posted this on LinkedIn:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to inhumanely release asylum seekers onto San Diego streets, often with little more than the clothes on their backs. #TeamImmDef, Lindsay Toczylowski, Margaret Cargioli, Melissa Shepard and Jesús Contreras Barajas, continues to join various non-profit organizations, grassroots groups and community members to receive asylum seekers with respect and help them reach their friends and family members all over the United States. Our dedicated team, in collaboration with our remarkable San Diego-based partners, is tirelessly working to continue to welcome migrants with dignity. We have welcomed more than 8500 asylum seekers in 13 days.

We need all levels of government, local and federal, to provide infrastructure and financial resources to help NGOs welcome with dignity.

If you want to help, please consider donating airline miles to Miles4Migrants. Please see the link in our bio to donate. Or donate directly to ImmDef at Immdef.org/donate.

#AsylumIsAHumanRight #WelcomeWithDignity

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

Scandalously, rather than looking to solve this humanitarian crisis, the GOP seeks to punish victims of Government dereliction of duty and their humanitarian responders for asserting well-established legal rights! Talk about a party of lawlessness! Sadly, it’s no surprise since they owe homage to an insurrectionist “leader” who is a notorious fraudster, con man, and criminal defendant in multiple cases!

While resisting the GOP’s worst racist/nativist nonsense, the Dems’ approach has been largely to avoid talking about immigration and human rights, apparently believing that pretending like they don’t exist will make them go away. But, migration isn’t going away!

While we can to some extent control, channel, and optimize migration, irresponsible “zero tolerance/uber deterrence” policies will do little to stop reality in the long run. It will, however, eventually force more migration underground and cede policy control to smugglers, cartels, and other criminals. 

At the same time, obsessing over deterring and deporting those who merely seek refuge and a chance to contribute to America will actually diminish the harder work of focusing on criminals out to turn border disorder and misplaced priorities to their advantage.

Neither party appears to have a realistic plan for the border, and the GOP actively seeks to make things worse! Meanwhile, not for the first time, NGOs, local communities, and compassionate individuals are left to pick up the slack!

Recently, the San Diego County Board showed the potential for bipartisan cooperation on the border. 

//www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2023-09-26/county-declares-humanitarian-crisis-at-border-will-ask-federal-government-for-more-help

But, without a more realistic approach from the Feds — currently blocked by the GOP — local efforts are unlikely to succeed. And, that’s an avoidable humanitarian tragedy!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-02-23

🇺🇸 COURTSIDE POLITICS: DEMS BAIL OUT McCARTHY, SAVE AMERICA (FOR NOW)! — NATIVIST IMMIGRATION NONSENSE STRIPPED OUT, BUT GOP THROWS UKRAINE 🇺🇦 UNDER THE BUS!🚌

Matt Gaetz (R-Outer Space)
Matt Gaetz (R-Outer Space)
The so-called mainstream media has seen fit to anoint this evil clown as the official spokesthing for the insurrectionist GOP.
PHOTO: X (formerly Twitter)

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

October 1, 2023

Saturday, at the 12th hour, GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy (D-CA) finally did the obvious — reached out to Dems to save America from insurrectionist, anti-American GOP extremists by passing a last-minute continuing resolution that will fund American government until Nov. 17. 

All Dems except one (who was protesting the GOP’s pro-Putin defunding of Ukraine aid) voted for the House bill, while 90 GOP insurrectionists voted to tank America and manufacture a needless crisis. The bill passed the nominally Dem-controlled Senate in about 30 seconds, and was signed by President Biden before midnight. The message about which party is serious about governing for the common good is obvious to all real patriots, even if a shocking number of GOP voters have foisted these far-right GOP clowns upon the rest of us.

The mainstream media uses the namby-pamby misnomer “border security,” to refer to the GOP’s proposed racist-nativist attack on immigration, destruction of the long-established right to asylum, and bogus attempts to reinstate “proven to fail,” draconian deterrence measures. As happened when tried unsuccessfully in the past, the GOP would turn over control of border migration policies to cartels, smugglers, and organized crime, while deflecting attention and undermining law enforcement efforts to control human and drug smuggling. 

A true accounting for the GOP extremist agenda would clearly show how firmly on the side of Putin and border bandits today’s dangerous, “destroy America” GOP has become. Too bad the so-called “mainstream media” has so little interest in digging beyond the cosmetics on the border issues and Ukraine aid.

The mainstream media is also salivating about the bogus prospect of MAGA-maniac Matt Gaetz (R-Outer Space) unseating McCarthy. The fact that Gaetz is an extremist idiot who has nobody to replace McCarthy with doesn’t seem to have dawned on the “mainstreamers.” (“Matt Gaetz’s Motto is, ‘I’m an Asshole, What are You Going to Do About It?’” https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjnkLH8h9WBAxXPkYkEHcr5CdoQFnoECBIQAQ&url=https://buzzflash.com/articles/matt-gaetz&usg=AOvVaw2XoHad3KzJeQitggMsTve3&opi=89978449). 

In perhaps the ultimate example of clueless, Fox News inspired, “mainstream journalism,” CBS’s “This Sunday” saw fit to inflict Gaetz and his bombastic nonsense on hapless viewers today. NBC, on the other hand, maybe still smarting from new-host Kristen Welker’s disastrous, totally uncalled for, “inaugural” interview with a raving, incoherent, lie-spouting Trump, gave us wall-to-wall coverage of the Ryder Cup in place of “Meet the Press.” Honestly!

Look forward to more clownish theatrics and anti-American posturing from the GOP and their “Chief Clown” Trump, and more insipid reporting from the mainstreamers as America careens toward another likely GOP-generated “crisis” in mid-November. It’s NOT a “Washington problem! It’s purely a GOP that lacks any interest whatsoever in responsible governing.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-01-23

🤯 WRONG AGAIN! — BIA Flubs Divisibility In 3rd Cir. — Pesikan v. Atty. Gen.

Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/insights/legal/immigration/b/insidenews/posts/ca3-on-divisibility-pesikan-v-atty-gen

https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/203307p.pdf

“Petitioner Srecko Pesikan argues that the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) erred in concluding that his 2018 Pennsylvania conviction for driving under the influence (“DUI”) of marijuana constituted an offense involving a “controlled substance,” as defined in the federal Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”), thereby rendering him removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a) (“INA”). We agree and will grant his petition for review. … In sum, because the identity of the specific controlled substance is not an element of the Pennsylvania DUI statute, the state statute of conviction is indivisible and cannot serve as the basis for Pesikan’s removal under the INA. … For the foregoing reasons, we will grant Pesikan’s Petition for Review in case number 21-1262 and will reverse the order for removal.”

[Hats way off to appointed pro bono counsel Bruce MerensteinArleigh Helfer and Stephen Fogdall (argued)!  Here is a link to the audio of the oral argument.]

Stephen A. Fogdall, Esquire
Stephen A. Fogdall, Esquire

– Stephen A. Fogdall

Daniel M. Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin (LexisNexis)

cell/text/Signal (512) 826-0323

@dkbib on Twitter

dan@cenizo.com

Free Daily Blog: www.bibdaily.com

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

These are important cases with high stakes! They deserve expert analysis from expert judges. 

Eliminating unnecessary Circuit reversals and remands like this would also help address the backlog-building, due-process-denying phenomenon of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” at EOIR. Avoidable mistakes at the “retail level” are systemically costly to our justice system in more ways than one!

And, remember, that for every EOIR mistake that gets “caught” by the Article IIIs, dozens of these injustices probably go uncorrected! Circuit review is a luxury that isn’t available to most individuals who lose at the BIA level. Even here, Mr. Pesikan would have had no chance at the Circuit except for court-appointed pro bono counsel Stephen A. Fogdall and his team at Dillworth & Paxon, LLP, another luxury unavailable to litigants at the EOIR level.

Moreover, even when Circuit review does take place, the inappropriately deferential standards established by Congress allow (or even require) some Circuit panels to merely sweep glaring injustices under the rug without grappling with the overall constitutional implications of this shoddy, due–process-denying  system. Why on earth would “deference” be given or review restricted over the “gang that can’t shoot straight” at EOIR?”

Gang that couldn't shoot straight
Would you give “deference” to these guys?
Theatrical poster from Wikipedia

Congress and the Article III Courts appear unlikely to face up to the need for constitutionally-required reforms at EOIR in the near future. Therefore, as I pointed out yesterday, it’s critical that NDPA experts apply for judicial positions at EOIR to change the system for the better and save lives from “within.” https://immigrationcourtside.com/2023/09/27/🇺🇸⚖%EF%B8%8F🗽🧑⚖%EF%B8%8F👨🏾⚖%EF%B8%8F-attention-ndpa-better-courts-mean-a-better-america-fr/.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-25-23

🤡🤯AS AMERICA SUFFERS, THE GOP CLOWN SHOW ROLLS ON TOWARD OBLIVION!

Clown Parade
The GOP, in full regalia, heads for the U.S. House. PHOTO: Public Domain

Dana Milbank writes @ WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/22/gaetz-mccarthy-shutdown-house-gop-deadlock/

Martin Luther nailed his theses to a church door. Matt Gaetz displayed his in the men’s room.

Specifically, the congressman (or somebody) left a draft of his “Motion to Vacate” on a baby changing table in a restroom downstairs from the House chamber, where it was found by journalist Matt Laslo. “H. Res. __,” it began. “Resolved, that the Office of Speaker of the House of Representatives is hereby declared to be vacant.”

But Gaetz (R-Fla.) doesn’t need a resolution to “vacate the chair,” as a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker iscalled. For all practical purposes, the chair is already vacant.

It should have been obvious to all this week, if it wasn’t already, that McCarthy (R-Calif.) is speaker in name only, as his leaderless Republican caucus stumbles toward a government shutdown. Review some of the labels House Republicans hurled at each other over the last few days:

“Clown show.” “Clowns.” “Foolishness.” “Weak.” “Terribly misguided.” “Selective amnesia.” “Stupidity.” “Failure to lead.” “Lunatics.” “Disgraceful.” “New low.” “Enabling Chairman Xi.” “People that have serious issues.” “Pathetic.”

Amid the epithets, Republicans brought the House to another standstill. For the second time in as many weeks, hard-liners blocked the House from even considering a bill to fund the troops. Two days later, they blocked it for a third time. They also forced party leaders to pull from the floor their plan to avert a shutdown — a plan that would do nothing to avert a shutdown even if it passed.

Walking into yet another grievance-airing session among House Republicans this week in the House basement, first-term Rep. Richard McCormick (Ga.) remarked to a colleague: “I think we should call this the Dance of the Dragons.” That was a “Game of Thrones” reference to a civil war in which (spoiler alert) both of the aspirants to the Targaryen throne died, along with several of their children and most of the dragons. McCormick later developed the metaphor for me: “We have a lot of powerful people in one room who are ferocious,” he explained in part, and “it’s going to get even uglier.”

. . . .

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

Read Milbank’s full article at the above link.

Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post

Remember, folks, the problem here is NOT “Congress,” as the so-called “mainstream media” would have you believe! No, it’s the GOP — the anti-American party of nihilism, insurrection, lies, and extremism! McCarthy COULD have had an agreement in hand long before now. all it would take is picking up the phone and working with Leader Jeffries and the Dems to come up with a reasonable funding proposal that could actually PASS the Senate! Indeed, McCarthy earlier cut such a deal with President Biden until he violated it under pressure from a few right-wing members of the GOP “wrecking crew” in an act of supreme cowardice (a McCarthy specialty) and total failure to pursue the common good.

Notably, when the House had a REAL Leader, Speaker Pelosi, there was no shutdown during the Trump Administration — even though there were plenty of issues (Dreamers being a key one) that some Dems would have liked her to “go to the mat” on. When the chips are down, Dems believe in governing; the GOP believes in destroying!

Upcoming generations who don’t want to live in a country where conspiracy theories, cruelty, misinformation, hatred, intolerance, false grievances, vengeance, dehumanization, greed, self-aggrandizement, racism, anti-semitism, grotesque fiscal and moral irresponsibility, misogyny, incompetence, and just plain stupidity replace democracy  and governing for the common good had better get energized and busy coming up with a strategy to remove GOP members from every elected position from the national level to local animal control officers. Otherwise, the majority of the next generations will face a bleak future in a nation trying to return to a past that never was with faux “leaders” who demonstrably can’t lead, and don’t even make a pretense of trying to do so.

The “forced birth party” shows little, if any, concern for the well-being of humanity once it has exited the womb! 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-26-23