Oct 2, 2023·edited Oct 2, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
This week feels like a cusp point for the country and its return to democracy. Having members of the House finally telling off the chaos caucus! There are several reforms that I'd like to see the Congress - both chambers - take: 1. Get rid of the one party winner-take-all the chairs of the committees and make it in proportion to the party distribution which right now is about 50-50% and what the Democrats are now negotiating with Spino McCarthy. 2. Get rid of the aisle separating the two parties. Again, I agree John Adams and George Washington that a two-party system would be the worst thing that could befall the Constitution. By having members sit next to people of another party you get more negotiation. One technique I used in my management career was sitting next to the person in a meeting that was most opposed to what I wanted to get out of the meeting. It is harder to disagree with the person sitting next to you than the person sitting across the table from you. 3. Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act so that Citizens United no longer puts donors over constituents and our elected officials start serving the People rather than the Oligarchs. We, the People, all of us this time! The other reason I feel this is a cusp point is the fraud ruling on DT which may do more to discredit DT with his base than mere indictments. Psychologically it will destroy DT. Just don't let DT offer you any Kool Aid.
One alternative I find worth exploring is the vTaiwan consensus building social media/crowdsourcing software. Instead of dividing people into confirmation bias bubbles, this social media works to unite groups by encouraging consensus building. https://wearenotdivided.reasonstobecheerful.world/taiwan-g0v-hackers-technology-digital-democracy/ We are also entering a time when we could explore true democracy rather than representative democracy. One place to start on all this is to get rid of the electoral college system. Next is ranked choice voting so that candidate need be civil to each other so that if they are not a voter's first choice they will be a strong second choice. These wonderful animations explain different forms of voting using the animal kingdom. https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom
All, the issue w a two-party system is that, over time, the two parties devise a system of arcane rules and customs to keep themselves in power. It’s a classic duopoly. Where else in the world can a single member of the legislature hold up all military promotions as Tommy Tuberville has done? Where else is there a filibuster? Americans have lived with these anti-democratic aberrations for so long they take them for granted.
Thank you for your very kind words. I hope we do get to work together the next time our souls are back in this physical world. I was extremely fortunate to work at Digital Equipment Corporation, a Fortune 100 tech corporation who lived its motto of Do the Right Thing and Value Differences. My mentor was the CEO Kenneth Olsen who proved that large corporations can be ethical; it is all about its leaders! Here is a short video on Ken Olsen -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6We6VDtyHY and my email to a friend when after I heard of his passing which was published in Forbes magazine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prospernow/2011/03/20/he-was-different-in-a-good-way-where-is-ken-olsen-when-we-need-him/?sh=26e2c6852b80 Enjoy! Looking forward to sharing that future time with you!
Cathy, Thank you for that. Ken Olson sounds like a wonderful human being and leader. I wish to goodness that our press would focus on the Ken Olson's of the world and not on the MAGA crowd. Really I do. The constant blasting of chaos, divisiveness, and just plain uninspiring and vapid people is disheartening. Your video of Ken Olsen made my day.
He was an amazing man. When I'd leave a one-on-one meeting with him I'd feel like you didn't have to pay me to work at this company. It was quite exciting. We were changing the world and we knew it -- and we did. I, too am sick of the media focusing ad nauseum on all the chaos and diviseness. I ám watching much less media and enjoying getting my news from Robert and Heather and a few other substack authors. And, the sense of community we have here is most delightful.
Lots of good points here. I especially like your strategy of putting the opposition next to you. I spent two months working construction of our 100-year-old cabin in Montana. I suspect some if not all of the crew probably watched Fox News regularly but we did not engage in political discussion. Instead, I painted trim, stomped cardboard boxes, and recycled large amounts of packing materials to take back to California to use to ship my ceramics. By the end of the two months, we had become friends and I learned a great deal about the demands of working seven days a week on a construction site. Lots of eye-openers all the way around including a tremendous respect on my part for craftsmanship and a first-hand realization of the appalling messiness of construction sites. I'm still processing this. Writing get-out-the-vote postcards was the easy part.
When I am speaking to someone who has the exact opposite opinion I have, I ask the question what in their life experience brought them to the position. Listening and understanding are key. Great that you're writing GOTV postcards! 😎
Hello Cathy. I like your #2 about seating. When I had the occasion (vis College Committee chairmanship, usually) to attend Oberlin College trustee/faculty dinners, I boldly suggested that individual faculty and individual trustees should not sit with their peers (usually the pattern) but seating at each table should be trustee/faculty/trustee/faculty. It happened at least a few times. (I'm now retired) Talking with the "other" is essential for smooth functioning of institutions. And your other points are also key.
I so agree with you regarding members sitting with those from another party. I did something like this way back when, assigning teachers to work with colleagues with whom they had almost an active war going on. Within one year, the conflicts stopped and only two of those teachers chose to return to their former grade level. The rest became friends and enjoyed working together.
When the mainstream media does spend its time on the 80%, they slant their coverage to only find fault and tell us how unpopular they all are. So, as far as I am concerned, the mainstream media can cover soap operas. I no longer consider them in the business to try to objectively cover the news. What they do is pretend they are objective and hide that instead they support the right wing. Yet, they still get called the liberal media. Who is calling them that? Not liberals for sure.
So true. However, the Big Lie about the "liberal media" has been spread, and it seems that it is hard to walk back Big Lies used to brainwash people. I have a former colleague/still friend who tells me that the left is no different than the right. That truism, is super annoying, and has led to quite a lot of disagreement between us, but this is the kind of myth the liberal media spreads too. Even if they are joined in many causes, like anti covid, anti government, they have different goals in many things and a different agenda. It is one thing to be against funding Ukraine because you are against funding all wars, then to be against funding it because you support Putin. The corporate owners are the ones who spread this crap, and try to make their media look like it is liberal, except for Fox News. I hope that getting beat up by lawsuits that they will hopefully continue to lose, will make being a right wing news outlet less attractive. Also, having the sane public jump on insane coverage will also give them negative feedback for their foraying into clear right wing territory. I prefer that they are obvious about it, because it is less insidious.
“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…”
I remain disgusted that the citizens of the United States were faced with the threat of a government shutdown. This is an abuse of governance. It needs to stop.
I just wish Biden and Dems would stop using words above the heads of most Americans. Brinksmanship! Try a word most people understand: extortion! And when it comes to Trump, John Eastman, Bannon, several senators and congressman, call their conspiracy for what it is: Treason! If you want to know what dangerous times we live in read Jon Meacham’s new biography of Lincoln. This imminent historian makes a strong point of the amazing parallels to our nation today. Most of us know about the plots to assassinate Lincoln but did you know about the plot to delay or sabotage the counting of electoral college votes? I didn't. Now I know where Trump’s genius lawyers got the idea. ““It seems to me the inauguration is not the most dangerous point for us,” the president-elect [Lincoln] told Seward. “Our adversaries have us more clearly at disadvantage” if they could disrupt or delay the Electoral College count. “It is, or is said to be, more than probable,” Henry Adams wrote, “that some attempt or other will be made to prevent the counting of votes and the declaration of Lincoln’s election”—and thus to prevent his presidency.”
— And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham
I just finished Jon Meacham's book on Jefferson. There are serious parallels between the post Revolution times to our current situation. There were those who became Monarchists (wanna-be dictators), and Jefferson and the Republicans, who wanted a democracy had their hands full fighting to keep the republic. It seems it is a perpetual struggle in our country. (PS, Meacham was clear about Jefferson's flaws.)
I'm looking forward to reading Meacham's book about Lincoln!
I have been saying this for YEARS. Dem politicians over intellectualize EVERYTHING. There's a reason they're called "coastal elites." And some could argue all of the substacks I read do the same thing, along the comments. Nearly 30 years in Communications tells me, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY and REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT.
Yes,I am with you there.I,too, was disgusted that the American people were again held hostage by a radical minority group.While the crisis was temporarily averted, it will once again rear its ugly head in 45 days, right before Thanksgiving.I hope the House can get a long term agreement to fund our government but I am not holding my breath.These emboldened radicals care nothing about country and owe their fealty to just one man,TFG.
These emboldened radicals main thrust is “fake it till you make it” This strategy gets more pronounced just before their fall. That’s when everyone realizes it was all just smoke and mirrors from the start.
Kudos to President Joe Biden and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Joe Biden refused further negotiations with Kevin McCarthy who had already broken the debt limit agreement. Hakeem Jeffries kept his caucus together (with the exception of a single pro-Ukraine protest vote -- Joe Biden will get the Ukraine support later.). These are politicians we can trust. (As I wrote that last sentence, it occurred to me it is not a sentence you see often.)
If McCarthy will not let a Ukraine funding bill get to the House floor, perhaps Democrats should tell him they’ll support measures to remove him from the Speakership.
(I realize this may have aspects of “from the frying pan into the fire”, but maybe the threat will move McCarthy.)
Another truly hopeful letter, Robert! All of the Republicans in the House knew they would be rightly blamed for the government shutdown, the 20% did not seem to care, nor understand the ensuing consequences. They have no shame.
President Biden is right to say enough is enough is enough.
Robert, your invocation of the Pareto Principle is an interesting one, especially as it applies to the media. However, I find it disheartening that the Republicans could only muster 60% support for the continuing resolution. The glimmer of hope I take from that is that they will similarly fracture their own base and clear the way for Democrats to govern effectively.
Subwoofer McCarthy has shown that he can't be trusted, by either side. I hope the 60% sanity margin of Republicans realizes that they need a leader who can work with Democrats, and replace him in short order. We've suffered enough.
I suspect that the 40% of the GOP caucus that voted no did so in the increasingly forlorn hope that the former president and failed insurrectionist will rise from the rot and once again stain the White House with his presence. Once the trials become part of the public record, we can hope that reality will seep in to at least some of those closed and benighted minds and bring them back into this world.
The core of MAGA extremism appears to demand severe far right policies that betray democratic order, belligerent disruption of deliberative processes, and forced brinkmanship rather than compromise. These actions chillingly threaten the foundations of our legislative legacy and rules of order.
Refusing to honor facts and truths, doubling down on lies and conspiracy theories, and making sport of mocking and bullying opposing beliefs was an unsustainable strategy forcing a reckoning with reality.
The Dominion defamation suit against Fox News, the multiple indictment against Trump and now, the shutdown threat are series of reckoning that force our society to reconcile the reality we wish to embrace.
As these events unfold, it is heartening to see democratic order affirmed.
Agree with you, Robert. BUT, it is not only the House (and Senate) Republicans that must wake up, it is their constituents at home, on whom they depend for their jobs. These are the folks who will determine whether their elected representatives continue to do the right and sane thing or continue on the path of sycophantic delusion. Let us believe the “glimmer of hope” includes them.
Not a fabulous appointment for multiple reasons…recent history shilling for Uber. No history of elected service. Feel great sympathy for current candidates…
Let me politely disagree. She was president of SEIU Local 2015, California's largest labor union, which represents nursing home and home-care workers, for more than a decade. Not an "elected" public position, but a leadership position, nonetheless. And she served as a Regent of the University of California, which is a very big job that represents tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of students in California and is responsible for the management of one of the largest investment funds in the nation. That's a lot of good experience.
I don't know what her expectations are, but if she is going to focus on working in the Senate and not campaigning starting this month, she is more than qualified to fill Dianne Feinstein's seat in the Senate.
I'd be surprised if the Washington bug bites that quickly, and she seems a quality appointment as a placeholder, allowing her to focus on governing for the next 14 months and the current candidates to campaign without more complications. Got Newsom off a tough political hook too.
Uber? or AirBNB? I saw nothing about Uber in that article. Did I miss something? I, too, feel sorry for the three outstanding current candidates. I believe the right thing to have done would have been for Gov. Newsome to put a time limit on that appointment.
I think there is an argument that extracting a promise from Butler in exchange for the appointment would be illegal. E.g., "I will appoint you if you promise to do X." If Butler wants to tell people on her own that she is not going to run, that is perfectly fine. I believe (hope) that is what she will do, either expressly or by not mounting a primary campaign. We will know if a few months.
Thanks for that information. I hope that she does what is (IMHO) the "right thing". I've been donating to Katie Porter's campaign since she first announced -- and I live in SC! :-)
Wait, wait…Instead of appointing the longtime Democratic congresswoman from one of the state’s largest cities, California’s governor instead appointed a fundraiser living in Maryland who traded in their union credential to help Uber bust unions?
Former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted that it was on September 30, 1938, that British prime minister Neville Chamberlain announced he would not stand in the way of Adolf Hitler’s annexation of the Sudentenland, a key move in Hitler’s rise. “Members of the House and Senate who are voting to deny Ukraine assistance on the 85th anniversary of Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 “peace in our time” speech should read some history,” she wrote. “Appeasement didn’t work then. It won’t work now.”
Thank you Robert for including James Schumacher's excellent comment about Russia's territorial aims and MAGA GOPers' operating as Putin's handmaidens and needing to be called out on that early and often.
A great letter! Thanks for affirming my personal interpretation of the vote in the House - your cautiously optimistic thoughts are informed by years of legal and political experience. Mine are just based on an average citizen who reads a lot and hopes there is truth in this potential shift in governance. Much gratitude to you for your deeply informed and easily readable confirmations of reality and a potential path forward.
As much as I hate brinkmanship and partisanship in this country, but especially in Congress. I still don't see why Democrats should help McCarthy. Just yesterday McCarty was on Face of the Nation, saying "I wasn't sure it was gonna pass. You know why? Because the Democrats tied to do everything they can to not let it pass." Fortunately, Brennan the interview said "Democrats were the ones who voted for this", and she kind of laughed... But this is what we are dealing with. Democrats have nothing to gain by helping McCarthy, he won't introduce their legislation to the floor and will still want to appease the Freedom Caucus.
We have 2 political parties, one has a main position that they will never compromise or work with the other party and rather see the government fail. There are only different levels to losing if you work with the far right members of Congress.
The 20% in favor of defaulting on US obligations and supporting Putin are led by Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jim Jordan. Each have personal failings that have rattled around the news. It's also clear that power and notoriety are more powerful motivators for them than what is good for the country. How the three will survive the next election cycle is an abiding mystery.
This week feels like a cusp point for the country and its return to democracy. Having members of the House finally telling off the chaos caucus! There are several reforms that I'd like to see the Congress - both chambers - take: 1. Get rid of the one party winner-take-all the chairs of the committees and make it in proportion to the party distribution which right now is about 50-50% and what the Democrats are now negotiating with Spino McCarthy. 2. Get rid of the aisle separating the two parties. Again, I agree John Adams and George Washington that a two-party system would be the worst thing that could befall the Constitution. By having members sit next to people of another party you get more negotiation. One technique I used in my management career was sitting next to the person in a meeting that was most opposed to what I wanted to get out of the meeting. It is harder to disagree with the person sitting next to you than the person sitting across the table from you. 3. Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act so that Citizens United no longer puts donors over constituents and our elected officials start serving the People rather than the Oligarchs. We, the People, all of us this time! The other reason I feel this is a cusp point is the fraud ruling on DT which may do more to discredit DT with his base than mere indictments. Psychologically it will destroy DT. Just don't let DT offer you any Kool Aid.
Well thought out and psychologically important. Last sentence critical, or tea (Putin’s favorite)
But what is better than a two-party system?
One alternative I find worth exploring is the vTaiwan consensus building social media/crowdsourcing software. Instead of dividing people into confirmation bias bubbles, this social media works to unite groups by encouraging consensus building. https://wearenotdivided.reasonstobecheerful.world/taiwan-g0v-hackers-technology-digital-democracy/ We are also entering a time when we could explore true democracy rather than representative democracy. One place to start on all this is to get rid of the electoral college system. Next is ranked choice voting so that candidate need be civil to each other so that if they are not a voter's first choice they will be a strong second choice. These wonderful animations explain different forms of voting using the animal kingdom. https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom
Two-party system when neither are crooks
I agree. How to get that is a problem!
All, the issue w a two-party system is that, over time, the two parties devise a system of arcane rules and customs to keep themselves in power. It’s a classic duopoly. Where else in the world can a single member of the legislature hold up all military promotions as Tommy Tuberville has done? Where else is there a filibuster? Americans have lived with these anti-democratic aberrations for so long they take them for granted.
all true
In my next life, I hope I can work alongside you at whatever company or organization you are a leader for. Kudos.
Thank you for your very kind words. I hope we do get to work together the next time our souls are back in this physical world. I was extremely fortunate to work at Digital Equipment Corporation, a Fortune 100 tech corporation who lived its motto of Do the Right Thing and Value Differences. My mentor was the CEO Kenneth Olsen who proved that large corporations can be ethical; it is all about its leaders! Here is a short video on Ken Olsen -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6We6VDtyHY and my email to a friend when after I heard of his passing which was published in Forbes magazine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prospernow/2011/03/20/he-was-different-in-a-good-way-where-is-ken-olsen-when-we-need-him/?sh=26e2c6852b80 Enjoy! Looking forward to sharing that future time with you!
Cathy, Thank you for that. Ken Olson sounds like a wonderful human being and leader. I wish to goodness that our press would focus on the Ken Olson's of the world and not on the MAGA crowd. Really I do. The constant blasting of chaos, divisiveness, and just plain uninspiring and vapid people is disheartening. Your video of Ken Olsen made my day.
He was an amazing man. When I'd leave a one-on-one meeting with him I'd feel like you didn't have to pay me to work at this company. It was quite exciting. We were changing the world and we knew it -- and we did. I, too am sick of the media focusing ad nauseum on all the chaos and diviseness. I ám watching much less media and enjoying getting my news from Robert and Heather and a few other substack authors. And, the sense of community we have here is most delightful.
Thank you, Cathy. I always look forward to your comments and your suggestions. Appreciated and valued.
Well I hope the maggots will think less of him but they haven’t been ‘moved’ by any of the other trash coming out about his wickedness.
Lots of good points here. I especially like your strategy of putting the opposition next to you. I spent two months working construction of our 100-year-old cabin in Montana. I suspect some if not all of the crew probably watched Fox News regularly but we did not engage in political discussion. Instead, I painted trim, stomped cardboard boxes, and recycled large amounts of packing materials to take back to California to use to ship my ceramics. By the end of the two months, we had become friends and I learned a great deal about the demands of working seven days a week on a construction site. Lots of eye-openers all the way around including a tremendous respect on my part for craftsmanship and a first-hand realization of the appalling messiness of construction sites. I'm still processing this. Writing get-out-the-vote postcards was the easy part.
When I am speaking to someone who has the exact opposite opinion I have, I ask the question what in their life experience brought them to the position. Listening and understanding are key. Great that you're writing GOTV postcards! 😎
Hello Cathy. I like your #2 about seating. When I had the occasion (vis College Committee chairmanship, usually) to attend Oberlin College trustee/faculty dinners, I boldly suggested that individual faculty and individual trustees should not sit with their peers (usually the pattern) but seating at each table should be trustee/faculty/trustee/faculty. It happened at least a few times. (I'm now retired) Talking with the "other" is essential for smooth functioning of institutions. And your other points are also key.
I so agree with you regarding members sitting with those from another party. I did something like this way back when, assigning teachers to work with colleagues with whom they had almost an active war going on. Within one year, the conflicts stopped and only two of those teachers chose to return to their former grade level. The rest became friends and enjoyed working together.
Now if the media would just spend their time on the '80%' instead of the '20%'!!!!!
When the mainstream media does spend its time on the 80%, they slant their coverage to only find fault and tell us how unpopular they all are. So, as far as I am concerned, the mainstream media can cover soap operas. I no longer consider them in the business to try to objectively cover the news. What they do is pretend they are objective and hide that instead they support the right wing. Yet, they still get called the liberal media. Who is calling them that? Not liberals for sure.
"With friends like you, who needs enemies?" is what I would say to today's so-called liberal media. Morning, Linda!
They followed Rupert down the lucrative Fox hole.
The “liberal media” is as liberal as their corporate owners.
So true. However, the Big Lie about the "liberal media" has been spread, and it seems that it is hard to walk back Big Lies used to brainwash people. I have a former colleague/still friend who tells me that the left is no different than the right. That truism, is super annoying, and has led to quite a lot of disagreement between us, but this is the kind of myth the liberal media spreads too. Even if they are joined in many causes, like anti covid, anti government, they have different goals in many things and a different agenda. It is one thing to be against funding Ukraine because you are against funding all wars, then to be against funding it because you support Putin. The corporate owners are the ones who spread this crap, and try to make their media look like it is liberal, except for Fox News. I hope that getting beat up by lawsuits that they will hopefully continue to lose, will make being a right wing news outlet less attractive. Also, having the sane public jump on insane coverage will also give them negative feedback for their foraying into clear right wing territory. I prefer that they are obvious about it, because it is less insidious.
“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…”
- Jonathan Swift
Perfect.
I remain disgusted that the citizens of the United States were faced with the threat of a government shutdown. This is an abuse of governance. It needs to stop.
I just wish Biden and Dems would stop using words above the heads of most Americans. Brinksmanship! Try a word most people understand: extortion! And when it comes to Trump, John Eastman, Bannon, several senators and congressman, call their conspiracy for what it is: Treason! If you want to know what dangerous times we live in read Jon Meacham’s new biography of Lincoln. This imminent historian makes a strong point of the amazing parallels to our nation today. Most of us know about the plots to assassinate Lincoln but did you know about the plot to delay or sabotage the counting of electoral college votes? I didn't. Now I know where Trump’s genius lawyers got the idea. ““It seems to me the inauguration is not the most dangerous point for us,” the president-elect [Lincoln] told Seward. “Our adversaries have us more clearly at disadvantage” if they could disrupt or delay the Electoral College count. “It is, or is said to be, more than probable,” Henry Adams wrote, “that some attempt or other will be made to prevent the counting of votes and the declaration of Lincoln’s election”—and thus to prevent his presidency.”
— And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham
Sorry. Eminent historian.
You can edit just by clicking on the three dots to the right and below your comment.
Thanks!
John Marksbury, how about using the word blackmail?
I just finished Jon Meacham's book on Jefferson. There are serious parallels between the post Revolution times to our current situation. There were those who became Monarchists (wanna-be dictators), and Jefferson and the Republicans, who wanted a democracy had their hands full fighting to keep the republic. It seems it is a perpetual struggle in our country. (PS, Meacham was clear about Jefferson's flaws.)
I'm looking forward to reading Meacham's book about Lincoln!
Meacham is masterful!
I have been saying this for YEARS. Dem politicians over intellectualize EVERYTHING. There's a reason they're called "coastal elites." And some could argue all of the substacks I read do the same thing, along the comments. Nearly 30 years in Communications tells me, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY and REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT.
Yes,I am with you there.I,too, was disgusted that the American people were again held hostage by a radical minority group.While the crisis was temporarily averted, it will once again rear its ugly head in 45 days, right before Thanksgiving.I hope the House can get a long term agreement to fund our government but I am not holding my breath.These emboldened radicals care nothing about country and owe their fealty to just one man,TFG.
These emboldened radicals main thrust is “fake it till you make it” This strategy gets more pronounced just before their fall. That’s when everyone realizes it was all just smoke and mirrors from the start.
I loved Biden's brief speech! He's telling it like it is!
Kudos to President Joe Biden and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Joe Biden refused further negotiations with Kevin McCarthy who had already broken the debt limit agreement. Hakeem Jeffries kept his caucus together (with the exception of a single pro-Ukraine protest vote -- Joe Biden will get the Ukraine support later.). These are politicians we can trust. (As I wrote that last sentence, it occurred to me it is not a sentence you see often.)
Leader Jeffries' barn-burner of a speech on Saturday was a sight to behold and a delight to hear!
It was definitely his "Obama" moment. I just hope he can deliver.
Jeffries is certainly a contrast to Kevin McCarthy. One more thing. Consider my free newsletter Len's Political Notes https://lenspoliticalnotes.com
Thank you, Robert! Am I right to think that President Biden and the team will not abandon Ukraine over this latest vote that averted a shutdown?
There is no doubt about Biden's commitment. The question is whether McCarthy will let a funding bill get to the floor.
If McCarthy will not let a Ukraine funding bill get to the House floor, perhaps Democrats should tell him they’ll support measures to remove him from the Speakership.
(I realize this may have aspects of “from the frying pan into the fire”, but maybe the threat will move McCarthy.)
Yes. That was the strong impression I got.
Another truly hopeful letter, Robert! All of the Republicans in the House knew they would be rightly blamed for the government shutdown, the 20% did not seem to care, nor understand the ensuing consequences. They have no shame.
President Biden is right to say enough is enough is enough.
Robert, your invocation of the Pareto Principle is an interesting one, especially as it applies to the media. However, I find it disheartening that the Republicans could only muster 60% support for the continuing resolution. The glimmer of hope I take from that is that they will similarly fracture their own base and clear the way for Democrats to govern effectively.
Subwoofer McCarthy has shown that he can't be trusted, by either side. I hope the 60% sanity margin of Republicans realizes that they need a leader who can work with Democrats, and replace him in short order. We've suffered enough.
I suspect that the 40% of the GOP caucus that voted no did so in the increasingly forlorn hope that the former president and failed insurrectionist will rise from the rot and once again stain the White House with his presence. Once the trials become part of the public record, we can hope that reality will seep in to at least some of those closed and benighted minds and bring them back into this world.
The core of MAGA extremism appears to demand severe far right policies that betray democratic order, belligerent disruption of deliberative processes, and forced brinkmanship rather than compromise. These actions chillingly threaten the foundations of our legislative legacy and rules of order.
Refusing to honor facts and truths, doubling down on lies and conspiracy theories, and making sport of mocking and bullying opposing beliefs was an unsustainable strategy forcing a reckoning with reality.
The Dominion defamation suit against Fox News, the multiple indictment against Trump and now, the shutdown threat are series of reckoning that force our society to reconcile the reality we wish to embrace.
As these events unfold, it is heartening to see democratic order affirmed.
Agree with you, Robert. BUT, it is not only the House (and Senate) Republicans that must wake up, it is their constituents at home, on whom they depend for their jobs. These are the folks who will determine whether their elected representatives continue to do the right and sane thing or continue on the path of sycophantic delusion. Let us believe the “glimmer of hope” includes them.
From Denialad: donbialostosky.substack.com
“There has to be an adult in the room,”
McCarthy uttered at the edge of doom
And reversed course to avert the shutdown
Despite the tantrums of the childish clowns
Who’d kept him pinned against the House’s wall
By threatening to initiate his fall.
The Democrats came through to save the vote,
But did he realize his sentence quotes
The statements uttered by a failing line
Of Trump’s appointees, all of whom resigned
Or lost their jobs when they tried to restrain
Their child-like boss and met with his disdain?
When Tillerson, Mattis, and Kelly played
The grown-up part, they ended up dismayed
And ineffectual. Their mature pretense
In fact turned out in the end to incense
The old man used to having things his way
And unsubmissive to another’s sway.
They weren’t dealing with a wayward child
But with a powerful grown man they riled,
And none of them came close to having power
To discipline him or to make him cower
Or get him to submit to laws and rules—
To him they were no more than meddling fools.
The power of tyrannical adults,
Whose aura draws to them admiring cults,
Can only be subdued by greater force
Or laws invoked with power to enforce.
McCarthy finally called on the Dems
To overwhelm MAGA and rescue him.
It wasn’t a maturity onset;
He made a desperate last-minute bet
That common stakes were high enough to make
Them vote with him though not for his own sake.
He let consensus moderates end his harried
Attempt to’appease. Even some primaried
Republicans decided they could chance
To vote the nation’s future to advance
Despite the wrath that Trump will surely rouse.
He’d called the MAGA faction in the House
To shut the country down and almost won.
McCarthy’s bipartisan vote has done
Perhaps more to reveal Trump’s waning power
Than all th’indictments made up to this hour.
They still await their trials and convictions,
But this vote marks his party hold’s constriction.
Not a fabulous appointment for multiple reasons…recent history shilling for Uber. No history of elected service. Feel great sympathy for current candidates…
Let me politely disagree. She was president of SEIU Local 2015, California's largest labor union, which represents nursing home and home-care workers, for more than a decade. Not an "elected" public position, but a leadership position, nonetheless. And she served as a Regent of the University of California, which is a very big job that represents tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of students in California and is responsible for the management of one of the largest investment funds in the nation. That's a lot of good experience.
I don't know what her expectations are, but if she is going to focus on working in the Senate and not campaigning starting this month, she is more than qualified to fill Dianne Feinstein's seat in the Senate.
Steven W. Thrasher, PhD, CPT
@thrasherxy, author of The Viral Underclass, writes:
In the last week, Gov Newsom has
— picked an anti-renter, anti-worker AirBnB/Uber shill as the best person to rep 40 mil Californians
— vetoed a bill that would have let striking workers get unemployment
- praised Reaganomics & Reagan’s LGBT record
W Dems like these…
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/04/kamala-harris-political-consultant-airbnb-409154
I'd be surprised if the Washington bug bites that quickly, and she seems a quality appointment as a placeholder, allowing her to focus on governing for the next 14 months and the current candidates to campaign without more complications. Got Newsom off a tough political hook too.
Uber? or AirBNB? I saw nothing about Uber in that article. Did I miss something? I, too, feel sorry for the three outstanding current candidates. I believe the right thing to have done would have been for Gov. Newsome to put a time limit on that appointment.
I think there is an argument that extracting a promise from Butler in exchange for the appointment would be illegal. E.g., "I will appoint you if you promise to do X." If Butler wants to tell people on her own that she is not going to run, that is perfectly fine. I believe (hope) that is what she will do, either expressly or by not mounting a primary campaign. We will know if a few months.
Thanks for that information. I hope that she does what is (IMHO) the "right thing". I've been donating to Katie Porter's campaign since she first announced -- and I live in SC! :-)
She absolutely counseled Uber on the way forward to keep contractors from becoming employees. It's easily searched online.
THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!! I hope that, if she decides to throw her hat in the ring for 2024, this becomes HEADLINE NEWS for Democrats!!
It's not a secret.
David Sirota
@davidsirota
Wait, wait…Instead of appointing the longtime Democratic congresswoman from one of the state’s largest cities, California’s governor instead appointed a fundraiser living in Maryland who traded in their union credential to help Uber bust unions?
Did I get this right?
Former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted that it was on September 30, 1938, that British prime minister Neville Chamberlain announced he would not stand in the way of Adolf Hitler’s annexation of the Sudentenland, a key move in Hitler’s rise. “Members of the House and Senate who are voting to deny Ukraine assistance on the 85th anniversary of Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 “peace in our time” speech should read some history,” she wrote. “Appeasement didn’t work then. It won’t work now.”
It would be great if the maggots could JUST READ HISTORY!
The operative is "read"
That reading about history likely won't happen-that might upset their apple cart of refusing to think.
Thank you Robert for including James Schumacher's excellent comment about Russia's territorial aims and MAGA GOPers' operating as Putin's handmaidens and needing to be called out on that early and often.
A great letter! Thanks for affirming my personal interpretation of the vote in the House - your cautiously optimistic thoughts are informed by years of legal and political experience. Mine are just based on an average citizen who reads a lot and hopes there is truth in this potential shift in governance. Much gratitude to you for your deeply informed and easily readable confirmations of reality and a potential path forward.
As much as I hate brinkmanship and partisanship in this country, but especially in Congress. I still don't see why Democrats should help McCarthy. Just yesterday McCarty was on Face of the Nation, saying "I wasn't sure it was gonna pass. You know why? Because the Democrats tied to do everything they can to not let it pass." Fortunately, Brennan the interview said "Democrats were the ones who voted for this", and she kind of laughed... But this is what we are dealing with. Democrats have nothing to gain by helping McCarthy, he won't introduce their legislation to the floor and will still want to appease the Freedom Caucus.
We have 2 political parties, one has a main position that they will never compromise or work with the other party and rather see the government fail. There are only different levels to losing if you work with the far right members of Congress.
The 20% in favor of defaulting on US obligations and supporting Putin are led by Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jim Jordan. Each have personal failings that have rattled around the news. It's also clear that power and notoriety are more powerful motivators for them than what is good for the country. How the three will survive the next election cycle is an abiding mystery.
Wow! It would be a really good sign if they were voted out! Please please please.