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Tag Archives: House of Representatives

With the rise of the Moon…

20 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Resist

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Tags

#resist, House of Representatives, leadership, Moon, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker

…comes news of the (re)new(ed) Speaker of the House.

Charles P. Pierce @CharlesPPierce
The Moulton-Ryan Axis is on its last spin.
[….]
4:43 PM – 20 Nov 2018

Speaker Pelosi. I like the sound of that.

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r), in the House minority, will now be able to totally refocus her legislative agenda on naming post offices (November 7, 2018)

Mark Osmack’s gonna be a contender

19 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

2nd District, Ann Wagner, Election 2018, House of Representatives, Mark Osmack, Second district

Missouri’s 2nd congressional district is relatively wealthy, mostly white and traditionally conservative. For years it was represented by retrograde moron and dominionist Christian, Todd Akin, who worried the issue of something he called “legitimate rape” like a dog worrying a bone until he found himself out of a job. His replacement, GOP Rep. Ann Wagner, who can best be described as a political Mommy Dearest, is preoccupied with the sad plight of bankers and financiers whom she struggles to protect, while cloyingly reassuring her other constituents that she has only their welfare in mind – a position the defense of which has necessitated that she rarely make contact with folks from her district who might be inclined to ask inconvenient questions.

We in the 2nd district may be able to tell a different story, though, after 2018. In past election cycles, Wagner has had few opponents who have been able to go up against her scads of banking industry money and local connections and she has easily prevailed. But all things must pass; change is inevitable.

Democratic strategists see the possibility of an upset in the 2nd – how much of a possibility and how seriously the Democratic party plans to support it has yet to be determined; it’s early days yet. Nevertheless, the party’s interest, coupled, I suspect, with the renewed activism triggered by the truly hideous garden path down which Republicans, led by their Trump man-baby, are taking us, has led to several viable candidates stepping up to take Wagner on.

One of those candidates, Kelli Dunaway, was profiled by Gloria Bilchik of Occasional Planet, and based on Bilchik’s comments, certainly seems promising. Another, Mark Osmark, currently employed as a consultant with Deloitte, met with a few members of the Queeny and Lafayette Townships’ Democratic Club last Wednesday (Aug. 16) and also managed to come across as an excellent alternative to the artificial and subtly doctrinaire Wagner. The following comments reflect my impressions of Osmack and what he had to say, in my language, not his – but if I misstate any facts, I would welcome corrections.

Like Dunaway, Osmack, is a newbie when it comes to running for office, although, again like Dunaway, he’s spent some time lurking on the periphery of the political world, putting in stints with both Claire McCaskill and Tammy Duckworth. He implied that he learned from these two distinctive politicians the importance of persevering in the face of obstacles, as well as more than a little about the realities of political give-and-take – and in spite of that baptism, he still believes that government has the power to make lives better for everyday people.

Osmack is a fluent and graceful speaker. Without once mentioning that he was awarded a bronze star, he was able to convey the importance of his two combat tours in Afghanistan. What he focused on when he spoke about his time in the military, was the importance of stepping up and accepting the challenges of leadership – he was a platoon leader – no matter how daunting it might seem.

Apropos of his experience in the service as well as his readiness to start big and run for the US Congress, he noted that no one would ever do anything if they waited until they’re “ready” for new challenges, but instead, one succeeds by stepping up and purposefully addressing the task in hand. To very loosely paraphrase, he presented his approach to the challenges of public service as something you just do because it has to be done and there’s no alternative but to succeed.

Osmack demonstrated familiarity with the ins-and-outs of the major political issues of the day as well as the lay of the land in the 2nd district. His offered acceptable if not daring answers to specific questions concerning such political danger zones as local racism (he won’t shy away from calling out racism despite the fact that the 2nd is a staid, predominantly white district), and, that major spoiler, reproductive rights (he “hates” abortion, but defends the right of women to choose to have a safe, legal abortion). What was impressive in his answers, though, was the way they were laid out clearly within a fully-fleshed, often personal, context that could help to make them palatable to many who are not firmly located on one or the other ends of the political spectrum.

Osmack’s answer to a question about gun violence was typical of his seemingly anecdotal but still laser-sharp approach to explaining his positions. After establishing his military bona fides as a man who knows about guns, he recounted his experience as the victim of an attempted car-jacking. His made the point that the perpetrator was armed with a gun and clearly understood how to deploy it; had Osmack been carrying a firearm and had he attempted to use it, he said that he is convinced he could now be dead. And had there been a gun concealed in his car, a criminal with one gun would now be, he noted, a criminal with two guns – an important point since most authorities agree that the proliferation of illegal guns on our streets is fueled partly by the theft of legal guns.

Nor is Osmack in denial about the potential roadblocks he may need to overcome to win the Democratic primary and prevail over Wagner in 2018. When asked about Wagner’s war-chest, his noted that money isn’t the whole picture and he doesn’t really need to match her reserves: there’s only so many TV spots etc. that can be purchased. He’s equally que sera, sera when it comes to the question of Democratic Party support and his current primary rivals. As noted above, it’s early times yet, and Osmack let us know that he is aware of that fact.

Given that it is early times, what did I learn last Wednesday? First, Osmack could be a real contender. He’s got serious potential and I hope, no matter what happens in the months ahead, that we see more of him in the Missouri political arena. Second, Democrats in the 2nd may be in the almost unprecedented situation of having an embarrassment of riches when it comes to possible challengers to Wagner. I’m looking forward to a promised panel discussion (or debate?) later on when we are closer to the primary.

Oh yes … I’m also feeling just a little more optimistic about being able to say adiós amiga once and for all to Ann Wagner.

Backlash blues – Missouri style

04 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Confederate flag, House of Representatives, Missisippi flag, missouri, racism, republicans, Southern strategy

In the wake of the vigorous calls to finally repudiate the Southern “Stars and Bars” Battle Flag after a Confederate flag-waving racist brutally murdered nine African-Americans in order to spark a race war, some members of the House of Representatives believed that it was important for our lawmakers to take a stand on the propriety of its public display in the House:

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., introduced a privileged resolution banning the Confederate flag from the House and House office buildings, unless it is displayed at a member’s office. The goal of his resolution is to remove the Mississippi state flag from the Capitol, which displays the Confederate battle flag in its upper left corner.

“I’m convinced that an effort to remove this flag from the hallowed halls of the House of Representatives is the right thing to do,” Thompson said on the floor.

Unfortunately, his fellow Republicans, including the GOP members of the Missouri delegation, preferred to equivocate:

Due to the nature of Thompson’s resolution, the House would have been forced to vote on the divisive issue, but on Thursday GOP leadership moved to send the resolution to committee, avoiding a floor vote for now.

The House voted along party lines, 240-184, to refer the resolution to the House Administration Committee. Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla., was the only Republican to vote not to send the resolution to committee.

While this strategy on the part of Republicans may have seemed like a clever way to avoid committing on a politically fraught issue, the stark nature of the division in the voting – Republicans against Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus – nevertheless provided, as Roll Call suggested the vote might, the defacto “first opportunity in recent history to get members of Congress to record their stances on Confederate imagery’s place on government property.”

With this vote, Missouri’s Republican House delegation made it clear that they, along with the rest of their GOP tribe, just want the whole issue to go away. On the one hand, it seems that the Confederate Flag is losing whatever respectability it ever had and to defend it might invite public shaming. On the other, to repudiate it openly would be to offend many of the diehards who whole-heartedly support the real meaning of the flag – and I don’t mean the mint julep that also figures in the so-called “Southern heritage” that defenders of the flag blather on about. These are the folks, after all, who make up the hardcore Republican base. Nothing like getting bitten on the backside by your own hitherto reliable Southern strategy.

This impression is backed up by the deep silence to date from the Republican Missouri delegation on the question of the Confederate flag. Visit our GOPers Web pages. You’ll find no mention of the vote, no mention of the flag controversy. Google their names in conjunction with confederate flag. Nada.

Maybe its early yet, but I’m willing to bet that the Missouri GOP reps won’t say a thing unless some interviewer puts them on the spot – and then we’ll hear about “states rights” – Mississippi gets to decide about its flag, not Congress, right? – or more of the specious drivel about the flag meaning different things to different people, and we must respect all points of view, correct? And then, of course, there’s always history. Like history’s going to go away if we don’t enshrine its bad actors (and actions) in our public places. Like it isn’t especially important that we call out those who seek to whitewash those bad actors.

The flag’s meaning has always been clear. And it’s always been shameful. It’s about the 12.5 million Africans kidnapped out of Africa and sent to the United States (minus the nearly 2 million who died or were murdered en route). It’s about their descendants born into forced servitude. It’s about an entire economy that depended on this horror to survive and the fat-cat perpetrators of that system who started a treasonous, deadly war to preserve a way of life that depended on economic hegemony over an entire race. Lest you doubt:

In Germany, the censorship of Nazi symbols is still a matter of debate — with many wrestling over the dual necessity of preserving liberal freedoms while also recognizing the evils of the Third Reich. Far-right and even neo-Nazi groups exist and organize in the country, but raising the Nazi swastika is a red line that no one can cross.

Instead, at times, some European fringe groups have come up with another symbol to represent their hateful creed: the Confederate flag.

Sooner or later, our Missouri Republicans will have to take a stand. Will it be with the white backlash inspired by the election of the first black president? Or will they recognize the backlash inspired by the excesses of racists emboldened by their very own recent rhetoric? It’s a no-win situation; in the words of the song:

Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash

Just what do you think I got to lose

I`m gonna leave you

With the backlash blues

You`re the one will have the blues

Not me, just wait and see


         From Blacklash Blues (Nina Simone)

Ann Wagner tries to spin the “do-nothing” label

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Tags

Ann Wagner, Do-Nothing Congress, House of Representatives, HR1626, HR2374, HR5300, HR96, missouri, republicans

No one can say my woman in congress, Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2), isn’t attentive to her constituents. She sends out a regular email newsletter, Ann’s Weekly Roundup, for those who care enough to sign up. This week Rep. Wagner was at pains to disabuse us of any suspicion that she and her GOP colleagues in the House have anything to do with that “do-nothing” congress we’ve heard about:

The American people want solutions.  I have defined myself through my own actions as someone who gets the job done.  Since being sworn-in to be your representative – I have passed four bills, in bipartisan fashion, out of the House of Representatives, which is a major accomplishment.

There is a lot of talk about this do-nothing Congress, but that catch phrase doesn’t ring true with my solutions.  To learn more about my bills, and the 350 other pieces of legislation that are stuck in Senator Harry Reid’s do-nothing senate, please click here.

Let’s take Rep. Wagner’s legislative achievements first. Out of the ten bills she introduced during 2013-14, her most prominent achievements have been efforts to rename post offices, four of them to be exact, in her district. Then there’s the Webster University Centennial commemoration. Of course, all congressmen and women have to make these symbolic gestures to the folks back home and spending time on such trivial pursuits is a universal part of political life. Nobody whould ever hold them against Wagner as long as she manages to effectively represent our interests otherwise.

It’s this last point that makes it so dispiriting when one takes a close look at the “solutions” Rep. Wagner thinks the American people want when she goes about getting the “job done.” Notice she doesn’t tell us in her newsletter just what jobs it was she personally took on. Best I can tell, the lions share of her serious work in congress is shilling for financial and other big corporate interests.

Consider three of the remaining bills Wagner introduced. As we noted in an earlier post, HR 2374 is a shameless effort to return financial regulation to the pre-2008 days that resulted in the Bush recession; it aspired to weaken Dodd-Frank “in such a way that it curtails the ability of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Labor (DOL) to make rules that protect investors.” Her HR1626 is aimed at reducing financial transparency requirements, seeking to amend “the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring the disclosure by an issuer of any political expenditure.” Then there’s HR5300 which would weaken the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal-fired electricity generation.

On one hand, you could conclude that these kinds of corporate favors  masquerading as responsible lawmaking make “do-nothing” seem kind of nice in comparison. On the other hand, though, since Wagner has known from the get go that these bills would never make it alive out of the Senate, they smack of “do-nothing” in the waste of time sense of the word. If she really wanted to get a worthwhile “job done,” instead of pandering to the moneyed interests she tries so hard to represent, she might have gotten her hands dirty and worked on some of the urgent problems the nation faces, helping craft the knd of compromise that might have had a chance of success. She could have used her leadership position to bring some of the crazies around to a more reasonable frame of mind rather than capitulating totally to the GOP looney-tunes wing, which, when one reviews Wagner’s votes and public statements, seems to be the course she chose.  From the costly (to tax-payers) government shut-down to the Ryan Budget, Ann was there, doing her part.

Almost all the House bills that Wagner alludes to when she talks about “350 other pieces of legislation that are stuck in Senator Harry Reid’s do-nothing senate,” represent just this type of time-wasting posturing. If you click on the link that Wagner provided, you’ll see efforts to repeal Obamacare, to weaken Obamacare, to destroy governmental regulatory power, and numerous other flagrant big business giveaways. There’s also HCR 96, Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity Budget, that attempts to privatize and weaken Social Security and Medicare. Bet Wagner et al. are really proud of that – and I’m not being sarcastic.

After looking at this list of stalled GOP legislation, I can only thank God for Harry Reid. I also think it demonstrates that the “do-nothing” label belongs squarely on the shoulders of the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, which now includes Rep. Wagner herself. Only fools and charlatans would pretend that any of these bills were realistic efforts to govern in a divided Washington. They serve only to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Wagner and her GOP pals have done little or nothing during their time in Washington besides pander to a base that has the sanest GOPers panicked and the craziest all adrenalized and raring to go. Wagner needs to wake up and realize that it’s a little late to try to escape the taint she’s acquired by her enthusiastic participation in the obstructionism and pandering that has characteried the GOP-dominated House.  

Image

Boehner’s Balancing Act

07 Monday Oct 2013

Tags

Affordable Care Act, Government Shut down, House of Representatives, House Speaker, John Boehner, Obamacare, Republican Party, tea party

Posted by Michael Bersin | Filed under Uncategorized

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There He Goes Again – Todd Akin Makes Another Ludicrous Speech

17 Wednesday Oct 2007

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

House of Representatives, missouri, Todd Akin

Todd Akinon is either completely ignorant or a bald-faced liar (although I wouldn’t rule out both being the case.) Here he is on the floor of the House:

For those of you too impatient to load the video, or would rather avoid seeing Akin speak at all costs:

I rise to call attention to a tragedy of our own making.

In May of this year, a U.S. soldier, Alex Jimenez, along with several of his friends, were captured by al Qaeda. As our intelligence officers wanted to tap into wires to try to find his whereabouts, they were hobbled and had to wait ten hours for lawyers to get through the FISA court, to allow them to get the critical information they needed. That information lost, this soldier and his compatriots have never been found, although the bodies of one or two have been found.

You won’t be surprised to find out that it’s complete BS. Think Progress debunked the story yesterday; the delay was caused by the Bush Administration’s own bungling interagency process and a missing Alberto Gonzales. The FISA court had nothing to do with it, which makes sense. The FISA law actually empowers the government to wiretap in advance of getting a warrant (up to 72 hours), so how could the court delay the wiretap in the first place?

So have you called your representative yet to make sure that individual warrants are preserved?

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