Tag Archives: House of Representatives

Political Rants

Eleven angry men.

When you think about the Kavanaugh nomination, you really need to step back and see the full picture. Sure, stopping the nomination is crucial, and it’s perhaps fortunate that he planted the seeds of his own self-destruction decades ago, long before his tenure as a hyperpolitical operative in the Republican Party. (Honestly, the guy is like the Zelig of American conservatism, working on the Star investigation, researching Vince Foster, participating in the “Brooks Brothers Riot” during the Florida recount, and on from there.) But if his nomination fails, they will attempt to fill the slot quite quickly with a much more boring, just as reactionary judge capable of serving multiple decades on the Supreme Court. So … why not just withdraw this troubled judge?

Well, HE seems nice.My guess is that they’re clinging to this one because Kavanaugh has proven to be such a reliable operative, and because he has a freakishly expansive view of executive power and privilege. (He apparently developed that during his stints in the W. Bush administration.) It’s hard to be certain of their reasoning, but their overarching motivations are quite clear. They want this seat and they want it now. The GOP has been working on this project for decades, taking an already conservative  court steadily to the right since Nixon’s days in power. A solid reactionary majority is the right’s insurance policy; it’s their trump card, no pun intended.

Consider the Republican party’s position. They remain, in essence, the party of white men. As this becomes less and less a nation of white men, it is an imperative for them to stave off the inevitable erosion of their voter base. The Senate is not so much of a problem, as a distinctly regional party can dominate that body given that party’s geographic distribution (e.g. Wyoming’s Senate delegation is  equal to California’s, even though the latter state is 70 times the size of the former in terms of population). The hyper-partisan GOP gerrymandering of the House in 2010 has made that body a lot more like the Senate in terms of representation, but that is a short-term solution for them. And the Presidency? They have lost the popular vote in six out of the last seven elections, so they mostly rely on narrow electoral college victories.

The Supreme Court, on the other hand, is the ultimate arbiter of public policy. With a solid reactionary majority, the GOP will be able to defeat progressive policies long after the party can no longer dominate electoral politics. So there’s much at stake in the coming days for those eleven angry white men on the Judiciary Committee …. much more than the problematic optics of the Kavanaugh hearing.

Elections matter, people. We need to take the Court seriously.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

No to reconciliation.

Want a good reason to vote next month? Here’s one: Paul Ryan’s “Better Way” agenda, which he will drive home like lightning if his party is successful on election day. With a Republican congress and a Trump presidency, Ryan can pass the most regressive political program ever contemplated on the national level. At the core of this agenda will be another raft of massive tax cuts for the rich, including a 20% cut for corporate taxes, which will drain trillions of dollars from the Federal budget and (no surprise) prompt austerity action on social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Why is this man smiling?On top of that, the “Better Way” will use reconciliation votes to repeal sections of the Affordable Care Act, including Medicaid expansion. Ryan tested his caucus’s ability to use this tactic on non-fiscal legislation this past term when he brought an ACA repeal vote via reconciliation. This will be repeated next year, but with a Republican president, their vile legislation will get a signature. Ryan will be able to move forward with converting Medicare to a voucher. You can already hear right-wing pundits floating the concept of expanded Health Savings Accounts as part of their “repeal and replace” strategy – that and the seemingly evergreen notion of allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. This should be great comfort to the hundreds of thousands thrown off of Medicaid by their so called “better way.”

Whatever your misgivings about Hillary Clinton (and I have plenty), voting for her is the best way to shut Ryan down. I strongly suggest you also consider voting down-ballot for Democrats. There’s an outside chance that Dems could take the House and a stronger opportunity to retake the Senate. That’s our best opportunity to ensure that we’re not massively losing ground over the next four years, even if we’re not leaping forward in great strides. I feel strongly enough about this that I have been volunteering for our local Democratic candidate for Congress (Kim Myers), mostly because her principal opponent is an anti-choice zealot who once referred to the head of the Oneida Nation as “spray-tan Ray” in a Trump-like drunk tweet. Classy.

There’s plenty we need to do to build a more progressive, equitable, and sustainable political reality. Voting is a very small but important part of that. It’s the best way at this point to say “no” to Paul Ryan’s agenda. Let’s stop that mother cold.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Unopposed.

Do we live in a democracy? Formally speaking, yes, if by democracy you mean representative democracy and, for most races, one person, one vote. But an election truly democratic if an incumbent runs unopposed? What choice is there but to assent or remain at home? That is the reality for a significant number of communities across the country, including my own. Our Congressman, Richard Hanna, will not face a Democratic opponent this fall. The county Democratic party has said they could not find anyone willing to run. What that tells me is, they likely could not find a millionaire, because after losing to the G.O.P. twice, the national Democratic party is probably not willing to drop another thin dime on this district.

Permanent fixture?That has been the situation here over very long stretches of time, including every election throughout my youth, but there have been exceptions. One was the election of 2006, when our longtime Republican Congressman Sherry Boehlert retired. The national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee saw an opportunity in what seemed like (and turned out to be) a Democratic-leaning year. They poured some significant resources into this district in support of the local D.A. at the time, Michael Arcuri. I worked on the campaign, manning the phone bank, and it was unlike anything I had seen short of a presidential campaign. They leased a building (an old restaurant) and set up a VOIP phone system with about 20 workstations. They sent a very sharp team of consultants to manage the ground game. It was a pretty impressive effort, and it succeeded, electing the first Democrat to that seat since well before my arrival on this planet.

Needless to say, the largess did not survive that election year. During Arcuri’s re-election campaign in 2008, the phone bank was in a cramped union headquarters in downtown Utica.  I used my cell phone for calls some nights. He got over the line just barely that year, apparently without significant investment on the part of the national party, only to be knocked off in the deluge of 2010, the consequences of which vex us still. Token opposition from a sadly underfunded  Democratic candidate ended in predictable failure to unseat Hanna last year, and now the DCCC has likely written this district off. So we’re stuck with a supposed moderate who sends me flyers on his efforts to protect the “2nd Amendment” against background checks, on his battle against “Obamacare”, and other clap-trap collateral handed to him by his much more generous national party.

So, hey … nothing to see here. Welcome to the one-party state that is Central New York … or as Schumer has dubbed it, “Silicon Valley of the Drones.”

luv u,

jp