Nancy Pelosi was a great, productive leader of the House as Speaker from 2007-2011, and she will be again.
She was easily the best Speaker of the House since Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, who was Speaker under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan from 1977-1987.
She accomplished more under the last two years of George W. Bush and the first two years of Barack Obama than any modern Speaker other than O'Neill in the past 45 years, and makes all Republican Speakers–Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, Paul Ryan–look pitiful by comparison.
The House of Representatives will have a much more complicated calendar for the first time in 12 years, as she will push and promote the Democratic agenda in the next two years, along with consideration of the possible impeachment of Donald Trump.
Her performance in showing up Trump at an open to the press 17 minute verbal dispute in the Oval Office was masterful, and showed she can best a man who thinks he is smart and brilliant, but was shown to be "an Emperor without clothes". Trump was humiliated by how Pelosi portrayed him and his manhood, and has shown, despite her reaching the age of 80 by 2020, that she is the right person to lead Democrats into a hoped for massive victory in 2020 for the Presidency and the US Senate, and retention of the House majority.
If the Republican Party, somehow, holds on to majority control of the House of Representatives in the 116th Congress, they will need to select a new Speaker of the House, as Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan is leaving Congress at the end of this year.
All three, honestly, make outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan look better by comparison, and yet, my readers know how much I dislike, and have denounced Paul Ryan, including when he was the Vice Presidential running mate of Mitt Romney in the Presidential Election of 2012, for which I was viciously attacked on several right wing websites at the time.
But seriously, Kevin McCarthy is practically the "lap dog" of Donald Trump, extremely loyal and obedient, and was seemingly aware of Russian Collusion in 2016, was talking about it at a Republican House conference meeting, until Paul Ryan told him to stop talking about it. He is a man without any principles other than the advancement of Donald Trump and his agenda, part of the Trump party, rather than the traditional Republican Party, and even more so than Paul Ryan, who has been unwilling to speak out against Trump's disgraceful tweets and policies. McCarthy has refused to engage in Town Hall events in his Bakersfield, California district since 2010. He also promoted pursuit of Hillary Clinton for the Benghazi, Libya incident, where four diplomats were killed, gaining a reputation of promoting a "hit job" on her, when many more diplomats were killed at embassies during the Presidency of George W. Bush.
Steve Scalise, thankfully, recovered from being shot at the Congressional baseball game in June 2017, but it had no effect on his views on gun control, which is no regulation at all. Beyond that, Scalise used to be a friend of Ku Klux Klan Wizard and white supremacist David Duke, although now, of course, he denies it, and tries to claim it was not so. He would, in this author's view, be a worse choice than McCarthy. However, for those who are uncomfortable with McCarthy, and might prefer a Southerner as the next Speaker, due to the strong GOP presence in the South, he might be seen as a potential favorite, and certainly less disgraceful by comparison, to the third choice, Jim Jordan of Ohio.
Jim Jordan, who is a co leader of the House Freedom Caucus, the most Far Right group in the Republican Party, has been accused of covering up abuse of athletes on the wrestling team at Ohio State University, when he was an assistant coach in the 1980s. He was one of the Republicans who promoted government shutdowns, and has done everything possible to block the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee from pursuing investigation of the Donald Trump collusion with Russia in the 2016 campaign. He also pursed the Benghazi, Libya investigation of the deaths of four diplomats, targeting Hillary Clinton in a total of 11 investigations, which found no evidence of wrongdoing, and which featured 11 hours of testimony by Clinton, with no sign of weakness on her part, as compared to the performance of many others investigated by Congressional committees. Plain and simple, Jordan would be the absolute worst of the three choices being considered by the Republicans, although others might join the fray after the midterm elections.
It is indeed a very sad situation when we can look back on John Boehner as being far better than Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Jim Jordan.
Let us hope that one of the latter three will be the Minority Leader, rather than the Speaker of the House in 2019-2020.
Speaker Paul Ryan Dismissal Of Catholic Chaplain For Statement About Protecting Those Less Fortunate Is An Outrage!
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has been a disgraceful Speaker, far worse than his predecessor John Boehner.
That is saying a lot, as Boehner was far from virtuous.
But Ryan who defines himself as a "devout" Catholic is nothing better than a phony, as his Catholicism and Christian beliefs are extreme right wing "prosperity" based.
The right wing Christianity condemns the poor and disadvantaged, and emphasizes acquisition of wealth over everything. the precise repudiation of the message of Jesus Christ.
What is wrong with that statement? It is a Social Justice view of Catholicism and Christianity, totally appropriate, and the true message that Jesus preached.
Ryan's abrupt decision, after he announced his retirement at the end of this year, was denounced by Democrats, but also many Republicans in the House of Representatives as totally outrageous and should not be happening.
It just adds to this blogger's long held denunciation of Ryan, going back to when he was selected as Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential running mate in 2012, which led to bitter attacks by many trolls on this author and his views on this blog, as well as on social media.
Now, more than ever, Paul Ryan has proved how disgraceful and biased a person he is, with his Ayn Rand, Social Darwinist view of his faith and of the rights of the American people.
Ryan would love to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other social safety net programs, and for that, he will be condemned in history.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has become a total disaster, caving in to Donald Trump, and undermining Congressional authority against Presidential abuses.
Ryan has helped to undermine the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian collusion, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, money laundering, violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, and sexual harassment and abuse by President Trump.
There are rumors that he plans to retire from Congress this year, and not too soon, as he has failed to play the role of a Speaker who puts the good of the nation ahead of politics.
He also is despicable in his craving for cutting the Social Safety Net of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as cutting back on essential regulations of labor conditions, the environment, health care, and education.
He is presiding over a House of Representatives which is way out of the norm of American politics, caving in to religious extremists and the Freedom Caucus, which is anarchistic in its hatred of the federal government.
This author and blogger condemned Ryan back in 2012 when he was Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential running mate, and his position on Ryan has not changed.
By comparison, John Boehner, with all his shortcomings, was nowhere as horrible as Ryan has been.
Randy Bryce is running as the Democrat trying to unseat Ryan from his Wisconsin Congressional seat, if he chooses to run, and whether Ryan runs or not, hopefully, Randy Bryce can be part of the expected Democratic "Blue" wave coming in November 2018. Bryce is an Army veteran, a cancer survivor, and iron worker running to give American workers in the First Congressional District of Wisconsin an opportunity to have one of their own background representing them in Washington, DC.
The first Congress under Barack Obama–the 111th Congress of 2009-2010–was the most productive Congress since the 89th Congress of 1965-1966 under Lyndon B. Johnson.
Despite all of the attacks on Nancy Pelosi, she can be regarded as a great Speaker of the House from 2007-2010, and once a Democratic President was in office, that 111th Congress reached its peak.
Ever since 2011, when the Republicans took over the House of Representatives, and since 2015, when they took over the US Senate, nothing much has been accomplished, and the number of days per year that either or both houses have been in session, has rapidly declined.
John Boehner and Paul Ryan in the House of Representatives, and Mitch McConnell in the US Senate have performed in a horrible fashion, and have worked at obstructionism during the Obama years, and in a vicious, vengeful way this year under President Donald Trump.
Each Congress since the 111th has been worse than the one before, so the 112th Congress (2011-2012); the 113th Congress (2013-2014); the 114th Congress (2015-2016); and the present 115th Congress (2017-2018) will, as a group, go down as the most disgraceful period of years of Congress in the past hundred years!
Obama Care Survives: Massive Defeat For Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, And Republican Party, And Public Opinion Is Turning Negative!
Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and the Republican Party have suffered a massive defeat, in their failure, after 60 votes over the past six years to destroy Obama Care, and now being unable to control their own caucus and accomplish its demise yesterday in the House of Representatives.
The Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, Can still undermine the enforcement of the law, and cause it to fail, but it will put the blame on Donald Trump for failure to enforce the law as it is, until and when it is repealed and replaced.
The irony of it all is that Obama Care is really the Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich Heritage Foundation program of 1993, offered as an alternative to Hillary Care, and is also based on Romney Care in Massachusetts, but once Obama was elected, the GOP decision was to refuse to accept any health care plan, and Mitt Romney ran against his own program in Massachusetts, when he opposed Obama in the 2012 Presidential election.
So both the Republican Party and Mitt Romney were engaged in total hypocrisy, when Obama settled for what has become law, due to the difficulties in gaining "a public option", or promoting "Medicare For All", a single payer system, when both would have taken control away from the health insurance companies.
The proposed bill that never came to a vote yesterday would have caused 24 million to lose all health care coverage, and would have given massive tax cuts to the wealthy yet a third time, after Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and George W. Bush in the 2000s, taking the needs of the wealthy who do not need a tax cut over the needs of millions of Americans.
Donald Trump has failed, and has discovered that his business methods do not work in politics, with him having believed like Ross Perot in the 1990s, that all you had to do was take the politicians into a room, and you could force them to do what you want, and both Perot in theory then, and now Trump in practice, is learning otherwise.
So we saw yesterday a rare moment of humility by Trump, who had claimed Obama Care would be gone on the first day of his Presidency.
We also saw yesterday the gleeful Paul Ryan, so anxious since college to destroy the social safety net while drinking kegs of beer and failing in love with lunatic Ayn Rand, finally getting his comeuppance.
The GOP is doomed as long as they allow the 30 or so members of the House Freedom Caucus to hold them hostage, a group which forced John Boehner out of the Speakership in 2015.
It is time for Ryan to start working for bipartisan government, and ask Democrats for help, as otherwise the GOP will fail to get anything done, since the anarchistic Freedom Caucus is out to destroy government itself, and must be repudiated totally, and told where they can go.
The Republican Party may be the majority right now, but public opinion has turned against them on health care, with only 17 percent supporting the failed Ryan health care plan.
So Ryan Care or Trump Care lies in ruins at this time, and it is well deserved.
Joe Biden, the 47th Vice President of the United States, is leaving public life after 44 years in the federal government, 36 as a US Senator from Delaware, and 8 years as Vice President.
Joe Biden is a true national treasure, who if not for the death of his son, Beau Biden, in May 2015, might have run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016, and might very well have defeated Hillary Clinton, and then won the election in the crucial states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.
Although Biden will be 78 in 2020, he has the energy, the knowledge, the experience needed to defeat Donald Trump, and he just might return to the Senate in 2018, if Tom Carper follows through on his plans to retire.
So it is not yet time to say Biden's career is over, although in elective office, it might be, but he will play a public role because it is in his blood to do so, and he will not stay silent when he sees wrongs being done by the Donald Trump Administration.
The alliance of Barack Obama and Joe Biden was the closest one in American history, possibly matched by Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, who in two days will have both survived the amazing total of 36 years since the Presidency and 40 years since their election in 1976!
Obama utilized Biden's connections on Capitol Hill; and gave Biden an office in the White House, as Carter had done for Mondale; and had weekly lunches with Biden as Carter did with Mondale.
Joe Biden was a true Presidential Advisor, full time participant, and trouble shooter, and was not afraid to disagree with Obama, particularly on foreign policy, his expertise, but was always a loyal part of the team once a decision had been made by the President.
Biden's warm, sincere personality was lovable, and he was able to work across the aisle on Capitol Hill with Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and other influential Republicans, and the entire Senate honored him recently for his cordial and effective role in the Senate.
Biden took the lead on gay rights and gay marriage; protection of women against violence; immigration reform; environmental advancements; gun control legislation after the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre; and the War on Cancer after his son died of that horrendous disease. Foreign leaders also, totally, respected him.
Joe Biden could be regarded as the greatest Vice President in American history, and his lifelong contributions will mark him in history as a very special political leader!
Thank you for your service to the nation and to Barack Obama, Vice President Biden!
Paul Ryan Boomlet For President Begun By John Boehner: Really?
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has now been endorsed and promoted to be the Republican Presidential nominee by former Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner does not exactly have great popular support in the Republican Party, and the Tea Party Movement and other right wing extremists do not wish to give Boehner "the time of day", having, basically, forced him out of the Speakership.
Ryan had said he did not want to be Speaker, but caved in to pressure. The question is whether he can now be pressured to promote a revolt against front runner Donald Trump.
The Republican establishment wants Ryan to run, feeling that John Kasich has little chance of success in his quest to stop both Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, who no one in the Republican Establishment can tolerate!
If Ryan, who is the presiding officer at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, were to lead a revolt, it will likely cause turmoil on the scale of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, which doomed the chances of the Democrats to elect their nominee, Hubert Humphrey in that election year.
It is clear, as this blogger has stated for awhile, that the Republican Party, as we know it, is done, and that Ryan cannot stop that demise.
If a third party movement starts, it insures that the Democrats and Hillary Clinton will win the Presidency, the Senate, a slight chance to gain the House majority, and transform the Supreme Court, in a truly "wave" election.
And if, somehow, Ryan ends up taking the GOP Presidential nomination, it will bring back memories of the 2012 Presidential election, when Ryan was "conquered" by Vice President Joe Biden in their VP debate.
Yes, Ryan has a handsome face, and youth, but he is also a flawed candidate, which this blogger emphasized four years ago, causing for awhile a major right wing attack on this blogger, including in THE BLAZE, the media creation of talk show host Glenn Beck. How dare I attack Paul Ryan, showing his many faults and shortcomings!
Also, were Ryan to be the Presidential nominee, it would be only the second time that a sitting member of the House has been the nominee of a major political party for President, with the only time being Ohio Congressman James A. Garfield, who was elected in 1880, and then, sadly, was mortally wounded by an assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, which is covered in Chapter 3 of my new book, ASSASSINATIONS, THREATS, AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY: FROM ANDREW JACKSON TO BARACK OBAMA (Rowman Littlefield Publishers, August 2015).
So the track record on a Congressman going to the Presidency is not a good marker for success!
As the year 2015 ends, we look back on the major political stories of this eventful year.
The rise of Donald Trump, and the threat he represents to the Republican Party, the conservative movement, and to the American people in general. He is promoting a Fascist agenda, including nativism, racism, misogyny, and a belief spreading among white working class men that somehow he is the new Messiah, who will solve all of the problems brought about by the failings of the George W. Bush Administration. These include the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, which fueled terrorism; and the Great Recession of 2008, which is still reverberating among those less educated and more suspect to demagoguery. And also,those who refuse to accept Barack Obama as a legitimate President find Donald Trump appealing.
The surprise appeal of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is gaining support among the millennial generation, and men and women under 45, who are more educated than average Americans, and find his democratic Socialist ideas appealing. There is no question that the younger generation is much more liberal than other Americans, and this bodes well for the Democratic Party, if Hillary Clinton continues her move to the left, pushed that way by Sanders' agenda.
The final acceptance of gay marriage and the advancement of gay rights on all fronts, including the rights of transgender people, but with much discrimination still evident by those who resist change.
The disappearance of John Boehner and the rise of Paul Ryan to the Speakership of the House of Representatives, and the issue of whether Ryan can be any more effective in dealing with the Tea Party Movement, which helped to bring Boehner to the point of resignation.
The growing racial tensions in the nation, due to increased examples of police abuse toward African American men, and even women, along with Latinos, and the growing militarization of law enforcement, a dangerous trend.
The rise of more domestic terrorism, including in Charleston, San Bernandino and elsewhere, some of it inspired by ISIL (ISIS), but also by right wing Christian extremism.
Barack Obama's changed foreign policy, including opening up to Cuban diplomatic relations; making a deal with Iran's government on nuclear weapons; attempts to cooperate with other nations to deal with Islamic terrorism, meaning ISIL (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria; and trying to work with a hostile Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who made life more difficult for Obama by openly consorting with Republicans over the President.
The growing impact of social issues on American politics, including not only gay rights and gay marriage, but also abortion, gun control, immigration reform, and climate change. All of these controversies will impact politics in a dramatic fashion in 2016 and beyond.
The issue of individual rights to privacy, and the growing role of intelligence gathering and government snooping, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, and other government agencies, who feel that they must intrude and investigate all social media and phones and computers, to protect us. This is seen by many critics as a violation of our civil liberties.
The evident deterioration of the effectiveness and competence of the Secret Service, in its role as protector of the President and his family; the Vice President; the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and all Presidential candidates, as the Presidential Election year of 2016 awaits us. The last thing we need is any incident that affects the health, safety, and lives of any of the candidates or the top leadership of government. If such were to happen, it would undermine our whole political system and stability in massive ways!