Hey, Look Me Over

Crashing a MET gala in New York City, NY,  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "wore a white off-the-shoulder gown by Brother Vellies, designed by founder and creative director Aurora James, with the words "TAX THE RICH" emblazoned down the back in bright red letters."

Lest we be tempted to assume that social conscience and tax policy was her motivation

On social media, Ocasio-Cortez said Brother Vellies created the dress. "The medium is the message, "Ocasio-Cortez captioned the photo. "Proud to work with Aurora James as a sustainably focused, Black woman immigrant designer who went from starting her dream at Brother Vellies at a flea market in Brooklyn to winning the CFDA against all odds - and then work together to kick open the doors at the Met."

That was previously recognized that as commercialism or, alternatively, drawing attention to oneself in order to draw attention to oneself.  A mere ten days later, as the House of Representatives voted to approve an additional one billion dollars in new funding for the multi-tiered, air defense Iron Dome system, Ocasio-Cortez

a member of the liberal group known as the Squad, was one of two members who voted “present” as the measure to help Israel replace missile interceptors overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday on a vote of 420 to 9. She was seen weeping on the House floor after she switched her vote from “no” to “present.”

In a letter sent the next day to her constituents, the congresswoman complained of "a lack of substantive discussion on this matter" and maintained "the process of bringing it to the House floor was deeply unjust." She claimed it

fueled the discussion to devolve to a point where it became clear that this vote would risk a severe devolution of the good faith community fabric that allows us to responsibly join in a struggle for human rights and dignity everywhere - from Palestine to The Bronx and Queens (and) I wept at the complete lack of care for the human beings that are impacted by these decisions,

The process, known as "suspension of the rules," created "panic and horror" and damaged human rights and dignity everywhere, from Palestine to The Bronx and Queens. But Ocasio-Cortez couldn't bring herself to vote against the measure. She opted for "present.."

It is unclear why Ocasio-Cortez did not vote against a bill she believed inimical to much of what she believes in.  However, she was captured by C-Span cameras speaking to an obviously engaged, arguably agitated, Speaker Nancy Pelosi before changing her vote from "no" to "present." They probably were not arguing over whether the NY Giants' quarterback Daniel Jones is better than the 49ers' Jimmy Garoppolo.

We do know, however, that the congresswoman successfully strove to be the center of attention at a gala to which she was not even invited. Soon afterward, she was shown crying about a bill she didn't vote either for or against. It's the sort of thing she does.

When John Lewis first campaigned for a seat in the House from Georgia, he described himself as "a workhorse (and) not a show horse," a "tugboat and not a showboat." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: you're no John Lewis.

 

 

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How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ilhan?

These two seem to have a disagreement:

Clean up your own party, dude. https://t.co/ip1NPPXCbF

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) April 14, 2019

It does appear that David Frum has remained a registered Republican. However, he has barely been in position to influence the Republican Party since he was effectively thrown out of the American Enterprise Institute in 2010, and probably not at all since he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In the article to which Frum linked in his tweet, he addressed the most recent controversy surrounding Democrat Ilhan Omar, in which the Minnesota congresswoman at a meeting of the Council of American-Islamic Affairs in March indelicately stated  “CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”

Frum notes that two Democratic presidential candidates already "have offered full-throated endorsements" with other Democrats having defended her.  He reasons

Having promised not to “let him drive us apart” from Omar, Democrats are now stuck with responsibility for the reckless things the representative from Minnesota says, not only about Jews, but about other issues, too. Omar has already served notice that she does not intend to behave more circumspectly in the future. In a Friday-night interview, Stephen Colbert asked Omar whether she would heed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s advice to back-bench it for a while. Omar answered, “I think Nancy knows this very well. Women have been told to go slow and not be seen and not be heard for many years. She wouldn’t have made it to where she is if she did. And it’s certainly the case for minority women … We are not there to be quiet. We are not there to be invisible. We are there to follow the lead of people like Congressman John Lewis and make good trouble.”

Well, this is trouble, and not only because John Lewis suffered a skull fracture when clubbed by an Alabama State Trooper in de facto enforcement of de jure segregation.  Some 54 years later, Representative Omar, her family, and her staff  (thankfully) are being given increased security by Capitol Police in response to a death threat from a civilian, who already has been apprehended.

It's a problem also because, as Frum wrote

The Democrats are on notice. More remarks will be coming...

After Trump’s tweeted attack, Omar will become even more internally uncriticizable and unmanageable, without becoming any more careful or responsible. Indeed, the speech by Omar that provided Trump with the sound bite he exploited—“some people did something”—itself exemplifies her carelessness and irresponsibility.

CAIR was founded in 1994, which was seven years before 2001, a not insignificant distinction in light of the statement by the freshman Democrat. Nonetheless, her Democratic defenders rightly believe that the comment must be considered in context, in which it appears less callous than the GOP is making it out to be. However, the full context impels also the recognition that

Against Omar’s propensity to provoke, the Democratic Party seems institutionally almost defenseless. Pelosi was thwarted when she attempted to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitic expressions by House members. Instead, the House substituted more muddled language in which Jews appeared in a laundry list condemning all expressions of intolerance against “African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others.”

And then at the Republican-Jewish Coalition convention, President Trump told the assembled American Jews that Benjamin Netanyahu is "your prime minister" and a Democratic victory in 2020 "would cripple our country and very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves." Thus having accused Jews of dual loyalties, Trump could have been censored by the House of Representatives for anti-Semitic remarks had House Democrats not taken a pass on justifiably accusing Omar of a similar expression of hate.

And now, as Frum realizes, the Democratic Party is stuck.  Representative Omar, far more intelligent than careful, got the message when her Party refused to address her statement on its own (lack of) merit.  Therefore

It cannot be pleasant for Omar’s colleagues to have to wonder and worry what that next remark will be—knowing that Donald Trump and his Twitter feed will be waiting to blame all Democrats for the provocations of one. But by not putting themselves on record about Omar when they could, Democrats now find themselves bound to her for the duration. This problem will get worse, and its political consequences will become ever more costly for Democrats who want to win national elections and govern the country.

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Backing Off

It's the same old tune. On January 6, immediately after the end of the roll call of states as Congress certified the electoral votes from November's presidential election, Democratic Representative Maxine Waters of California asked "is there one United States senator who will join me?"

Of course not, just as there is not one United States senator who will bypass Donald Trump's inauguration.

The boycott by dozens of Democratic Representatives of the inauguration is merely a symbol, albeit an important symbol.  But the gathering on January 6 was not merely ceremonial, for

Members of the House of Representatives objected to the electoral tally in states including Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Mississippi and the Carolinas in a symbolic move that exposed lingering dismay over a contentious election campaign.

Some members complained about long lines at polling stations while others cited concerns over Russian attempts to influence the result in Trump's favor....

None of the representatives had the backing of a senator, which would have allowed them to suspend the joint session and allow the House and Senate to meet separately to debate the objections.

Like a voice crying in the wilderness

"I object because people are horrified by the overwhelming evidence of Russian interference in our election," said Representative Barbara Lee of California before being overruled.

Biden denied the objections one by one, at times jocular and apparently determined to finish the tally. "It is over," he said at one point, to laughter from Republicans.





Why waste our time? It's only the presidency of the nation's pre-eminent nuclear power.

We've seen this play before.  Sixteen years (minus one day) earlier, The New York Times had reported

The rancor lingering from the bitterly contested presidential election spilled over during a joint session of Congress today, forcing Vice President Al Gore to gavel down black House members time and again in order to make official the election of his opponent, George W. Bush.

Congressional certification of the Electoral College vote is usually quick and routine. But nothing has been ordinary about the November election that will result in Mr. Bush being sworn in this month as the first president since Benjamin Harrison in 1888 to win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote.

Today, for nearly 20 minutes in the cavernous House chamber, a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, joined by a few sympathizers, tried in vain to block the counting of Florida's 25 electoral votes, protesting that black voters had been disenfranchised. Florida's highly contested electoral votes were crucial in Mr. Bush's victory after a prolonged legal and political battle following an inconclusive election.

Federal law requires a member of both the House and the Senate to question a state's electoral votes in writing for a formal objection to be considered. But the House members had no Senate support. So Mr. Gore, who was presiding in his role as Senate president, slammed down the gavel to silence them and rule their objections and parliamentary maneuvers out of order.

"There's something  about an Aqua Velva man," the old commercial went, and "it's a sad day in America when we can't find a Senator to sign this objection," Representative Jesse L. Jackson of Illinois said on January 7, 2001.  Like Aqua Velva and Mary, there is something about Democratic senators, and not in a good way. Seventeen years ago and also two weeks ago, they were offered political cover by House members and had the chance to deliberate. They weren't up to it.

Now John Lewis- John Lewis!- says "I don't see Trump as a legitimate President" and 68 Democratic members of the US House of Representatives respond by promising to boycott the inauguration. The tally among Senators: zero (0).

If this pattern is simply the contempt held by the Senate for the House, that would be bad enough. It is worse if it's the Democratic instinct to bring a knife to a gun fight. The Trump crowd is big on the Second Amendment, and a metaphorical knife will be insufficient.







'
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Champion of Self-Promotion

It's not sinful to be a back-bencher or to flail against windmills, raising issues which fail to be resolved or legislation which is not enacted.

But a little humility is in order- or at least an absence of braggadocio. But Michele Bachmann disagrees, as she displayed (segment transcript, here; video, sort of, below) at last night's debate in Ames, Iowa:

This is what qualifies me, as a fighter and Representative of the people, to go to Washington, D.C. and the White House. People are looking for a champion. They want someone who has been fighting. When it came to healthcare, I brought tens of thousands of Americans to Washington to fight the unconstitutional individual mandates. I didn't praise it. When it came to cap and trade, I fought it with everything that was in me. I introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act so people could purchase the ligh tbulb of their choice.

The great freedoms- among them, the right to vote; the right to worship as one chooses; the right to purchase a home regardless of race, gender, or religion. And the right of a corporation to manufacture and sell the light bulb of its choice. The latter would be the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, introduced by a U.S. Representative virulently opposed to reproductive freedom of choice.

A moment later, the self-proclaimed champion continued:

I was at the tip of the spear fighting against the implementation of Obamacare in the United States Congress. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama ran Congress, but I gave them a run for their money. Again on cap and trade, I was there from the very beginning giving Speaker Pelosi a run for her money. That's why i was Speaker Pelosi's number one target to defeat last year because I was effectively taking them on nearly every argument they put forward. I fought. When others ran, I fought and I led against increasing the debt ceiling.

Bragging about trying to bring the economy to its knees may be a little untoward but this was a Repub Party debate, after all. But a little perspective on Bachmann's run for Pelosi's money was provided in late June by Politico

Now in her third House term, Bachmann has never had a bill or resolution she’s sponsored signed into law, and she’s never wielded a committee gavel, either at the full or subcommittee level. Bachmann’s amendments and bills have rarely been considered by any committee, even with the House under GOP control. In a chamber that rewards substantive policy work and insider maneuvering, Bachmann has shunned the inside game, choosing to be more of a bomb thrower than a legislator.

Choosing to be more of a bomb thrower than a legislator. It brings to mind the campaign in Georgia in 1986 for an open seat in the House of Representatives when civil rights legend (and victim of police brutality) John Lewis faced off against civil rights legend Julian Bond. In a race featuring his on-ground experience against the fame of Bond, the lesser-known Lewis asserted he was "a race horse, not a show horse" (and won).

Michele Bachmann is no John Lewis- or even Julian Bond. But In the exceedingly unlikely event the Republican Party's spear tip impresses primary voters one-fourth as much as she impresses herself, she'll be on her way to a presidential nomination.

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The son of sharecroppers, John Robert Lewis graduated from American Baptist Theological Seminary and Fisk University, both in Nashville, Tennessee.

A Freedom Rider, John Lewis was beaten bloody by an angry mob of Klansmen on Saturday May 20, 1961 at the bus terminal in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, at which Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech . Less than two years later, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, as John Lewis, Dr. King and 600 civil rights marchers headed east from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama, they were severely beaten at Edmund Pettis Bridge, by state police and sheriff's department officers, with their complement of billy clubs, tear gas, and bully whips in what became known as "Bloody Sunday."

Mr. Lewis was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1986 and has been reelected every two years, facing no opposition since 2002. As a U.S. Representative, he is a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention and on October 12, 2007 endorsed for the Democratic nomination for President Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he supported through Georgia's primary on February 5. When in January, according to ajc.com (Atlanta Journal-Constitution website), a Repub political consultant used an anonymous, automated phone call to criticize Lewis' support for Clinton over Obama, Lewis reportedly said of switching allegiance "It's unthinkable. "You make a commitment, you keep that commitment."

Now John R. Lewis telling the New York Times, as reported on 2/14/08, “something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap” and that he could “never, ever do anything to reverse the action” of the voters of his district, who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in the primary. On February 15, Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the report by the Times' Jeff Zeleny is "inaccurate"- but the reporter adamantly maintains that Lewis' intent was clear. The same day, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a black South Carolinian whom Lewis serves as chief deputy, says "John is wrestling with this."

We all can sympathize with the weighty decision facing John Lewis. Yet, when party rules added Democratic officeholders, members of the Democratic National Committee, and activists as delegates, they were not designated in order to ratify the vote in their district, their state, or the nation as a whole (in which many Independents and Republicans have voted). They were expected to exercise independent judgement which, especially given John Lewis' long record of service to nation and party, is a right and privilege, as well as an obligation. Those individuals who decided long ago to endorse either Democratic candidate may have been premature, even foolish. But they did make a commitment. And just as Senator Edward Kerry, Senator John Kerry, and Governor Patrick Deval, all Massachusetts officeholders/superdelegates who endorsed Obama before a primary which Hillary Clinton won convincingly, have not questioned their decision, neither should Lewis.