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.
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.
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.)
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.
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…
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.
Now if the media would just spend their time on the '80%' instead of the '20%'!!!!!
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.
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.)
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?
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.
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…
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.