THE HOUSE'S CHOICE

 

In the weeks long chaos that it took to finally elect a Republican Speaker of the House, there was a brief, shining moment when the small, sane part of the party might have prevailed.  Jim Jordan, who was roundly endorsed by former President Donald Trump, was shot down by Republican House members who didn't want to vote for someone who denied that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.  Instead, Tom Emmer, a Minnesotan moderate was ready for a vote.  While I certainly don't agree with Emmer on much, he did vote to certify the 2020 election for Biden.  Sadly, that's what did him in, as Trump took to social media and branded Emmer as a "RINO", and his name was withdrawn without a vote (perhaps because an open vote would have allowed Democrats to vote for Emmer, outweighing the conservative votes against him).  Oddly, Trump didn't have enough clout to get Jordan elected, but he did enough to get Emmer tossed.

In any event, after Emmer the House went back to the drawing board and elected someone just as extreme as Jordan.  Oh sure, eventual winner Mike Johnson may not be as outspoken as Jordan, nor does he have Jordan's checkered pre political past (google "Jim Jordan's wrestling coach career  controversy" to read the jaw dropping charges), but when it comes to election denial and conservative views,  he's even worse.  Ignoring the rejection of Jordan, Trump crowed on social media that Johnson should be called "MAGA Mike" because he not only voted against certifying Biden's victory, he has been called one of the chief congressional architects in Trump's attempt to undo the election.

Along with endorsing Trump's election lies, here are some of the other political views that Johnson is well out of the mainstream on:  He's compared abortion to the Holocaust.  Wrote that “Experts project that homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.” in 2004.  In 2006 said this about the left:  “In the space of a few decades, they have managed to entrench abortion and homosexual behavior, objectify children into sexual objects, criminalize Christianity in the popular culture, and promote guilt and self-doubt as the foremost qualities of our national character.”  He is on the record as wanting to increase the retirement age and decrease Social Security and Medicare spending along with other social safety net programs.  In 2016 he blamed no fault divorce, abortion and feminism for school shootings.  And he's not just a Christian, he's a fundamentalist who thinks that the earth is only around 6000 years old.

Yes, despite his mild mannered, soft spoken demeanor, Johnson is an extreme right winger who should never have been given the power of being Speaker of the House.  Amazingly, he still may prove to not be extreme enough for some House Republicans, who may wind up resenting any kind of upcoming deal he makes to avoid a government shutdown in the coming weeks.  Yes, the modern Republican party is so ungovernable, with a vocal,  far right wing that thinks that a federal government shutdown is a good thing, that even Johnson may wind up being tossed out like McCarthy was after he "betrayed" the right and cut a deal with the Democrats to keep funding the government.  The best thing that can happen here is that next year all those moderate Republicans serving in districts that Biden won in 2020 will lose and the Democrats will run the house again.  As imperfect as they may be, at least the Democrats don't want to blow up the federal government.

REMEMBERING YITZHAK RABIN

 

The terrorist group Hamas recently lead what was the deadliest attack on the state of Israel in over 50 years.  (Indeed, it appears that the attack was made to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war.)  The attacks were well coordinated and utterly brutal, with civilians, including children, targeted and hostages taken. 

It appears that the group's motive was an attempt to stop a normalization process that is currently being negotiated between Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Also, the recent chaos in the Israeli government, with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing corruption charges while he's also trying to controversially overtake the country's judicial system, may have lead to an image of perceived Israeli weakness.  Of course, the attacks have only unified the Israeli government behind  Netanyahu.

Israel now is readying a full on military assault into the Gaza Strip, and it is already telling civilians to flee away from the northern area of the Strip, where they are preparing to invade.  While I certainly support Israel's right to exist and defend itself, I do fear that the force of the attack may result in such heavy civilian casualties that it will further inflame the hatred of Israel in the Muslim world.  And such a war may not necessarily be easily won, not when Hamas is willing to use both civilians and hostages as human shields.

Given all the sadness and horror going on, it's hard not to reflect on how things might be very different right now if Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin hadn't been assassinated back in 1995.  At that time Rabin had begun a peace process with then Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yassir Arafat known as the Oslo Accords, that would have returned some  territories occupied by Israelis  to the Palestinians.  While the accords were inevitably controversial in both Israel and Palestine, it seemed then that Rabin truly wanted peace and was willing to compromise to get it.  He was even awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

In 1995 Rabin was shot and killed by Yigal Amir,  a right wing Israeli who felt that Rabin was selling out Israel.  The killing was a double tragedy, in that it not only ended Rabin's life, it also pushed Israel to the right politically, with every prime minister since pursuing an aggressive stance with Palestine and the idea of compromise being forgotten.  While there's certainly no way of knowing just what the Middle East would be like now if Rabin had never been assassinated, in the wake of a horrific terrorist attack, it's hard to believe that things could be worse if Rabin had lived.  I see him as truly heroic man who's killing set both the Middle East region and the world backwards.

THE BRIEF REIGN OF KEVIN MCCARTHY

 The Republican party showed just how much it is run by its most extreme members when they booted Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy out of his leadership position just a few days ago.  While I have no sympathy for McCarthy, the difficulty of his position reveals how far to the right the party is today: yes, the man who said that Trump won in 2020, bowed down to him just days after the January 6th riot, and pushed for an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden wasn't conservative enough for some House members.  His sin (to them) was his recent willingness to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open another 45 days without demanding draconian spending cuts to the budget.  And, because of his bowing to the right, no Democrat was willing to to support him, leaving him a man without enough support in his own party to get the votes to remain speaker.  It's really remarkable, but not surprising, that a minority of the Republican party, which only currently controls only one branch of congress, thinks that they should have undue influence in the running of our government, without making any attempt to compromise, or even accept that they are in the minority. 

It should be pointed out that the voting out of a house speaker is something that has never happened before in the entire history of our country.  Yes, another terrible precedent has been broken by the Donald Trump wing of the government.  And don't kid yourself, Trump was part of this.  He has both privately and publicly stated that he wants Biden impeached, forcing McCarthy to push for an impeachment investigation without evidence.  Trump also seems to think that the house can somehow rescind his two impeachments.  He even posted on social media that he thought that shutting down the government would somehow end the criminal trials that he's facing.  And to top it off, some congresspeople think that Trump himself should be elected speaker, something he hasn't completely dismissed.    And the idea that a one term, twice impeached former president facing multiple felony charges could be voted in as leader  of the House of Representatives, putting him in charge of the phony Biden impeachment investigation, shows just how completely loony tunes our politics have become since Trump entered the scene.

All of this madness comes with the backdrop of recent polls showing Trump tied with or ahead of Biden in next year's presidential election.  Now while those polls are early, and a lot of could happen between now and then (for one thing, Trump's court trials will be taking place), it is horrifying that a corrupt criminal sociopath like him could even get one percent of the vote.    But, as always, the strength of the Trump cult and its hold over a surprisingly significant percentage of the population is seems unbreakable, no matter how many crimes he has obviously committed.