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The real RINOs

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Today’s Republican Party claims to be the only truly patriotic, fully America-loving and God-fearing political party in the country, the one that will protect regular America-loving and God-fearing citizens from the perfidies of big gummint and make the country, well, you-know-what again.  So, how are they doing with that today?

Well, as I write this we are just hours away from the gummint shutting down much of its operations because Congress cannot pass the legislation needed to pay the bills.  But not because the Congress and the president haven’t been able to come to a compromise: this past May President Biden and House Speaker McCarthy did agree on total spending levels through 2024.  It’s that some Republicans in the House refuse to accept the deal.  If there is no agreement by the deadline we can all look forward to enjoying life with only “essential services” from Washington.  If you are a government worker (as I was) who is deemed essential (as I was not), you get to keep working but not be paid for it; non-essential workers just get furloughed.

So much for Republicans looking out for the average, America-loving, God-fearing citizen.

What Republicans are doing instead of keeping the government running smoothly is kicking off an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.  Against whom they have no evidence – zero – of his commission of an impeachable offense.  Who brought witnesses who say they don’t see it, either:  Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor, said “In fact, I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment.”  The same Republicans who screeched that Democrats were weaponizing impeachment against the former guy (who was as innocent as the day is long during his presidency, they insisted, and who is just being victimized by 91 criminal and civil indictments (so far) in his post-presidency) are only doing the Lord’s work in rooting out corruption in government.

The weird thing is, the same Republicans who are trying to use the mechanisms of government to impeach a president of the other party (albeit one who faces no substantiated allegations of any wrongdoing) are the same ones who by obstinately refusing to compromise on a spending plan will force much of that same government to close up shop for an indefinite period.  (Although, not Congress or their investigation.)  This is not, historically, what the Republican Party has been about.

The Grand Old Party was organized in the early 1850s as a coalition opposed to the expansion of slavery into new states and territories, and after the Civil War its majority in Congress –- the Radical Republicans -– passed laws to, among other things, protect the rights of freed slaves.  While Democrats in the South worked to chip away at the Reconstruction reforms, Republicans became more and more associated with the interests of business; some also supported (gasp!) progressive efforts for social reforms.

The growth of the federal government through the New Deal period and World War II encouraged more and more Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights for blacks (and other non-whites) and most expanded government programs to move to the Republican Party, where they joined up with conservative Christians stirred to action by opposition to “culture issues” that they were persuaded were threatening the “Christian nation” that God had intended America to be.  These elements came to control the party…or at least they did until they handed over the keys to a circus clown from New York.

Today those Republicans who are part of “MAGA nation” – polls say they are less than 25% of the nation as a whole — seem ever so pleased with themselves any time they get the opportunity to act-out as childish name-callers; one of their favorites is to brand a fellow Republican with whom they have some disagreement on a point of policy, no matter how trivial, as being a Republican In Name Only.  (How clever.)  But they are the real RINOs, who have succeeded in taking control of a once-respected political organization and philosophy and turned it into a vehicle (a clown car?) for instituting their warped social views into law.  It’d be a lot funnier if they weren’t so successful.

Say the truth

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It feels like it’s been going soooo slooooowly, but maybe we’re going to see some movement.  Chairman Bennie Thompson says the first public hearings on what the House January 6 committee has learned will be held in early June, and committee member Jamie Raskin is describing what they have learned this way: “This was a coup organized by the president (Donald Trump) against the vice-president (Mike Pence) and against the Congress in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election” and “We’re going to tell the whole story of everything that happened. There was a violent insurrection and an attempted coup and we were saved by Mike Pence’s refusal to go along with that plan.”

Wait, what?  Saved by Mike Pence?

To be fair, I can remember feeling sort of satisfied at the time that Pence had finally stood up to his boss (I think there was some mention of overcoming obsequiousness in there) and refused to take part in such a blatantly illegal plan—a coup.  But I hadn’t considered that maybe we all owe Pence more of a debt than we realized.  Earlier this week MSNBC’s Chris Hayes laid out this interpretation.

I’m eager to see the evidence.  I’m eager to get on with it!  Not to rush to judgment, mind you, but it’s been almost 16 months: the legislative branch and the Justice Department and the court system have got to nail the people responsible for this illegal power grab, and do it soon…or we may find those traitors may be back in power in Washington and in a position to protect themselves forever.  We’ve got to take action to punish those who deserve punishment, and stand up to the haters.

None of the mechanisms to deter a rogue president would work to restrain a reelected Trump.

On that note, I was invigorated last week to stumble across a speech by Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow.  In retaliation for her support of LGBTQ issues, one of her “colleagues” embraced the popular new right-wing slur by accusing McMorrow of “grooming” children for sexual exploitation.  In a fundraising message.  No evidence provided, of course.  But McMorrow didn’t just take it, or shrug it off; in less than five minutes she sent a positive message that hits the haters right between the eyes.

https://twitter.com/MalloryMcMorrow/status/1516453738403143681

“Hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it happen.”

I want to take a lesson from Mallory McMorrow, and not to afraid to call them like I see them.  We need to make it OK again to say the truth that we see.  It’s how we can defeat the haters.

Democrats Ask if They Should Hit Back Harder Against the G.O.P.

"I have a dream"

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This was my post in August 2013 on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, including a YouTube clip of the entire speech; I repost it to honor the holiday is his memory and to remind us of his call to a virtuous future…I think some of us could use the reminder about now.

Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., took the podium at the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; it is still one of the most profound and moving speeches in the history of American rhetoric, on top of what it meant to the civil rights movement.  King did not dream that his children would one day be able to watch the speech on their desktop computer or smartphone, but they can, and so can we.

The whole thing is remarkable, including the peek you get at what a slice of America looked like in the early 1960s; go to the 12:00 mark to catch the dreams, and then on through to the end for the ad-libbed “let freedom ring”s and the promise of ultimate freedom which still stir my emotions.

“…let freedom ring.  And when this happens…and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Out of the coverage leading up to this week’s anniversary I’ve pulled a couple of gems: from Brian Naylor at NPR, a look at the little segregated southern town that was Washington, D.C. 50 years ago; and from Robert G. Kaiser in The Washington Post, a reporter’s remembrance of the event he covered 50 years earlier, with a quite remarkable admission—that the local paper blew it when it all but overlooked King’s speech in its coverage of the march!

Happy birthday, Mr. President

Pat Ryan 5 Comments

If you gave this backstory to a character in a novel it would be justifiably criticized for being unbelievable, too over the top:

An East Coast child of Ivy League privilege, son of a U.S. senator, postpones college to enlist in the Navy and gets shot down over the Pacific and dramaticallyGeorgebush rescued on film but serves through until the end of the war, then goes to Yale where he is the captain of the baseball team and graduates Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in economics in just two and a half years before taking his wife and growing family to West Texas and making his fortune in the oil business before running for office and becoming the first Republican to represent Houston in the U.S. House; and after he loses a run for the Senate his party calls on him to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and then during the Watergate crisis the national party chairman, and then the chief liaison to Communist China, and then the director of the CIA; and when he runs for president but loses in the primaries, the guy who wins the nomination picks him as his vice president and he serves eight years as VP before winning the White House on his own and presiding over the end of the Cold War; and then he turns his attention to an international non-profit organization trying to solve social programs through the promotion of voluntary service to others.

Yeah, sure…very believable.

But it’s all true.  And today, George Bush turns 90 years old.  Despite the fact that he’s pretty much wheelchair-bound these days he celebrated with a tandem parachute jump (pictures included!) this morning before hosting a party for 200 that will feature Irish tenor Ronan Tynan.

The man is still a great example, perhaps especially to young people “who weren’t even born when he left office” and who are disenchanted with the American political system.

It starts with what Bush said to a group of young people in one of the last speeches he gave as President: “What all of us seek in our life is meaning and adventure. It’s through service that all of us can find both.”

Mary Kate Cary, a former Bush White House aide and the executive producer of a film about Bush that airs on CNN (twice) this Sunday, June 15, gives us a taste of what some prominent folks have to say in her film about Bush and his legacy of doing for others, and for the right reasons.

What I have to say is, thank you.  And, happy birthday!

First the good news, then the better news, then the bad news

Pat Ryan 1 Comment

The good news is this: Congress has reached a budget deal.  Yes, the U.S. Congress.  And not when facing a deadline.  America’s guests have done a thing that is rare in this day—their jobs.  Here are the details; I’m most enthused at the idea that enough members showed enough maturity and leadership to actually work out some agreement, one which means we and the world can go two years without having to fret about a government shutdown.

Now to the better news, which I would actually classify as a Christmas miracle if I were given to assuming that God takes sides in American politics (or sports): the mainstream Republican Party is showing signs of finally standing up to the conservative extremists.  Speaker of the House John Boehner was the first to publicly, honestly, express his exasperation with the tea partyish crowd that has pushed the GOP so far to the edge of American politics that they have to stand on each other’s shoulders a mile high in order to see the center.  He reportedly got even more “honest” in private:

“They are not fighting for conservative principles,” Mr. Boehner told rank-and-file House Republicans during a private meeting on Wednesday as he seethed and questioned the motives of the groups for piling on against the plan before it was even made public.

“They are not fighting for conservative policy,” he continued, according to accounts of those present. “They are fighting to expand their lists, raise more money and grow their organizations, and they are using you to do it. It’s ridiculous.”

The conservatives of course defended themselves, which is perfectly fine; I hope the center and the far right keep this back-and-forth going ad infinitum (we’re already well past ad nauseum).  For however long they fight with each other—and these things don’t last as long as you might wish them to—it keeps them from concentrating their fire outside the circle; maybe that keeps the extremists from winning more elections and coming into real power to remake America in their own frightening image.

One more politics thing: did you see who was cited by PolitiFact for the Lie of the Year?  Yep, our president.  Selected by a reader poll from among ten finalists, “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” was chosen by 59%, the winner going away and embarassingly ahead of popular favorites like “Congress is exempt from the healthcare law” (Ted Cruz), “No U.S.-trained doctors will accept Obamacare” (Ann Coulter) and “Muslims are exempt from Obamacare” (chain email).  President Obama’s catchy little reassurance actually worked its way up over the years from “half true” to “pants on fire” and now Lie of the Year.  Congratulations, Mr. President, for finding a way to help the self-defeating conservatives survive the circular firing squad.