Time For A Democratic Majority In The House...

[Lord Jim]

I said here some months ago that the behavior of many within the GOP Congressional majority was driving me very sadly and reluctantly towards the conclusion that I might have to follow up my vote against the Republican Presidential nominee, (I really prefer to put it that way, rather than calling my vote a vote "for" Hilary Clinton) with the even more bitter pill of having to support a Democratic take over of the House...

I have now reached this deeply depressing and difficult conclusion...

Before I go into the reasons for why I have decided that this has become necessary, I'd first like to make clear what the reason isn't:

It is certainly NOT because I have somehow suddenly become enamored of the philosophy or policy agenda of the Democratic Party, or its leaders on Capitol Hill...

Far from it. My policy views have not changed. I don't post about it very often, (because my time here is limited, and I prefer to use the time I have available to post about politics on this board focusing on what I see as the most important issues. Like the existential threat that the current President Of The United States represents to the fundamental well being of our Republic and the rule of law) but I'm sure that from a strictly policy point of view, I am in agreement with a much higher percentage of what has come from this administration than most people here.

I support the defense budget increases, and the more robust military strategy for bringing down the ISIS caliphate, (for which Jim Matis deserves the credit). I supported the Gorsuch nomination, I support the nomination of conservative jurists in general, (though I do not support completely unqualified judicial nominees, of which this administration has put forward more than its share) I support a lot of the cuts in regulatory red tape, tax reductions, and increases in business investment incentives...

In general, the policy decisions that have come from this administration that I support are pretty much policies that would have been pursued by any Republican President, from John Kasich to Ted Cruz, and supported by any GOP controlled Congress...

There are of course also a whole slew of policies that have have emanated from the Trump White House that I vigorously oppose. The trashing of critical alliances and agreements, the systematic gutting of the State Department, the highly suspicious reluctance to hold Russia accountable for its acts of aggression and crimes (against both our own country and internationally) to name but a few...

(And oh yes, call me a radical socialist, but I also oppose ending funding for providing breakfast to poor children because Mick Mulvaney doesn't believe their scholastic test scores have improved sufficiently for them to deserve to be fed...)

I remain the same limited government, pro-free enterprise, strong national defense, strong national security Reagan Republican I have been for nearly four decades...

No, it's not policy, but rather things like this that have driven me to conclude that my party cannot now be entrusted with control of the House of Representatives :

Distrust between Mr. Rosenstein and Congress has been building over months. In recent weeks, he has made significant gestures to release documents demanded by prominent congressmen, only to be threatened with impeachment by lawmakers from the far right. [There's a Mt. Everest sized mountain of evidence just in the public domain for obstruction of justice charges against Trump, but rather than hold even one single hearing to look at any of it, the GOP majority on the HJC wants to take up impeaching Rosenstein... ]

Mr. Rosenstein responded on Tuesday to that threat by declaring that the Justice Department would not be “extorted.”

Officials at the department believe that the conservatives have now gone too far with document requests related to continuing investigations that the lawmakers clearly do not support, including the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russia’s election interference.

A former federal law enforcement official familiar with the department’s views said that Mr. Rosenstein and top F.B.I. officials have come to suspect that some lawmakers were using their oversight authority to gain intelligence about that investigation so that it could be shared with the White House.

Mr. Trump’s threat on Wednesday to intervene bolstered those voices and could undermine the Justice Department’s ability to protect some of its most closely held secrets. Lawmakers conducting oversight are usually given summaries of the information, but not the intelligence collected directly from wiretaps and sensitive sources.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/p ... icans.html

The behavior of the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee and (even more importantly) the House Judiciary Committee, has been been beyond disgraceful...

"Disgraceful" would have been simply to fail to do their jobs and perform the oversight functions they are charged with...

"Beyond disgraceful" is for them (as they have done) to pervert the use their oversight powers in order to actually act as co-conspirators to aid the very executive branch malfeasance that they ought to be investigating.

And even more depressing, it has become abundantly and indisputably clear that the GOP House leadership will do absolutely nothing to curb this rule-of-law undermining behavior...

Behavior which threatens the very system of checks and balances that we rely upon to prevent the emergence of a tyrannical executive...

I'm every bit as much in favor of lower taxes as the next Republican, but (apparently unlike some of my party brethren on Capitol Hill) I don't consider that (or any other policy I support) a goal worth achieving at the cost of risking our Constitutional system and the rule of law...

That wouldn't strike me as a particularly conservative thing to do...

And make no mistake; when we have (as we do) a President aggressively seeking to to undermine our Constitutional system and the rule of law, a President waging a relentless war on every institution in our government and society at large designed to serve as a check on his power, (our law enforcement agencies, our courts, our free press, etc.) a President who daily engages in systematically trying to deconstruct the very concepts of "truth" and shared reality that are critically important for a democratic system to function...

Having a Congress that sits by and does nothing, (let alone a Congress that actually aids all of these anti-American behaviors) is absolutely, totally and completely unacceptable...

There are times when the issues being faced are so important and critical, that they rise above and transcend any particular policy considerations...

We live in such a time. We live in a time when we have an executive so hell-bent to pervert our system of governance, that having a legislature that will stand-up and thwart these efforts is absolutely essential.

I have come to the very unhappy conclusion that at this moment in history my party (as it is constituted on Capitol Hill) is simply incapable of performing this function, and that therefore it is unfit to continue to control the House of Representatives.

A Democratically controlled House won't be able to do any of the things I wouldn't want them to do; they won't be able to impose higher taxes, or slash defense spending, or gut our national security laws...(whatever happens in the House elections, and even if for some reason Pence were to go too, for reasons we have discussed in detail there will still be a Republican President, and the Senate will remain nearly evenly divided)

But a Democratically controlled House will be able to carry out a full, thorough, and evidence driven inquiry into the many misdeeds of this President, and lay them out publicly for the American people...

Which the Congressional GOP is clearly unwilling and/or unable to do, and which needs to be the highest priority of the Congress...

[Lord Jim]

A couple of addendum:

1. I didn't say anything in that very long post about the US Senate...

I have a lot less concern on that score. Depending on the size of the Blue Wave this coming November, the Senate will either have a narrow Republican majority or a narrow Democratic majority. While Mitch McConnell has shown himself to be every bit as cowardly in his willingness to stand-up to Trump as Ryan, there isn't the same sort of sizable collaborator faction among the GOP members of the Senate as there is in the House.

The Senate Intel and Judiciary Committees have actually been able to hold some real hearings, and I have no doubt that if the evidence is developed and presented effectively enough in the House to create the necessary support in the country, there will be more than enough Republican Senators to provide the margin for a Removal vote.

2. My decision to support a Democratic take-over of the House does NOT mean that I am supporting Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker. Many Democrats, (including the recently elected Congressman Lamb) are not supporting Pelosi for Speaker, so I see no reason why I should have to try to choke down the additional gallon-sized bottle of cod liver oil of supporting Pelosi...

My decision does however, mean that I am accepting the strong possibility that she will become Speaker, even though I'm not supporting her for it. I've decided that seeing Pelosi in charge of of 1/2 of 1/3 of the federal government for the next two years is a price I'm willing to pay for all the reasons I detailed in the OP. We're talking about very high stakes.

[BoSoxGal]

LJ, have I mentioned lately how much I appreciate having a reasonable Republican of conscience to interact with in these times?

Thanks for being you.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I would like to think that, at some not-too-distant point in the future, we will all have learned the lesson of these times: that democracy is delicate and, like a marriage or your relationship with your boss, has to be worked at. Ben Franklin apparently said, when asked what the Constitutional Convention had come up with: “A republic, if you can keep it.” I have said on these pages that maybe a Trump was necessary, as a once every couple of generations reminder, that if several billion of us are to live together on this little planet, we have to learn how to get along. But I am concerned that, if (when) Trump is successfully impeached, we will return with a sigh of relief to beach volleyball and Krispy Kreme for mental stimulation, and ignore the next iteration until it’s too late. Someone, somewhere, who is smarter and more disciplined than Trump (OK, I realize that this does not narrow the field by much) and as amoral is learning the lessons the times are treating us.

Apathy. That’s how every empire falls.

[BoSoxGal]

This Marc Dion piece was in the Fall River Herald the other day; you may recall that Fall River is where Joe Kennedy III gave the Democrat response to the SOTU this year. I thought it was an excellent piece that really gets at the heart of how f’d up we are.

When I heard of the closing of Philips Lighting, one of the things I wrote was: “I’m saddened at the thought of every individual Philips Lighting employee who has to go to work every day. I see you, knowing it won’t last long, thinking of finding something else, sitting at home, working the numbers over and over, trying to see if you can retire when they close the place.”

Not too many days later, U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy said it, speaking on the floor of the House.

“For the 61-year-old worker nearing retirement, paying off his daughter’s student loans, a meager investment in job retraining isn’t worth much,” Kennedy said. “For the countless workers who will sit around dining room tables in Southeastern Massachusetts tonight and figure out how their family budget can absorb impossible cuts, lip service from the White House means nothing. Meanwhile, Philips Lighting shareholders are being showered with $187.4 million in stock buybacks thanks to Donald Trump’s tax plan. Make no mistake, that’s the legacy of the GOP tax bill.”

Kennedy’s remarks had more of a national focus than mine, because he’s a rep and I’m as local as a chow mein sandwich. The chow mein sandwich was invented in Fall River because it’s poor people’s food, just bread and noodles and a little gravy. That’s a good thing to remember when you write about Fall River.

I’ll be 61 next month, which gave Kennedy’s words more of a punch. I know who I am and what I am. I know how much the mortgage costs every month, and I know where I get the money to pay.

I work. My wife, fellow reporter Deborah Allard, works.

They told us to work, everybody told us to work. You could be proud if you worked. You could make it if you worked. You could pay your bills. If you worked, you were doing it right, doing what the anonymous “they” wanted you to do. Work was good for you, good for your city, good for your country.

All that is a joke now. Blind with rage, the working people of this country revolted and found a crooked real estate developer to be the president. We are the only people in history who ever rose up against poverty by turning their nation over to the rich. They let us keep our guns, and they took everything else, and too many of us are still cheering.

Kennedy spoke of Philips Lighting using Trump’s “Make America Great Again” tax cut to hand $187.4 million to stockholders. The company did that, and then they crumpled up Fall River people and dropped them in the trash like a losing scratch ticket.

I’m a local columnist, a chow mein sandwich. It’s not surprising that I can see that kitchen table. Kennedy is a rich man, but he can see that kitchen table, and he knows what retraining is worth when you’re 61.

I went to a veteran’s memorial ceremony in Turner Park Thursday morning, and that ceremony, and Kennedy’s words, and the kitchen table — all those things ran together for me.

Because there’s always a war, and you come back from that war with both your legs if you’re lucky, and people say, “Thank you for your service” like those words paid your rent. How many of “our” veterans lost a job at Philips Lighting? How many walked out of Quaker with no idea of how to make the mortgage next month?

Joe Kennedy has talked about Fall River twice in the last few months, standing in the fire at Diman to counter Donald Trump’s wheezy self-congratulation, and now, standing on the floor of the House, begging them to see worried men and women sitting at the kitchen table, working and re-working a budget that doesn’t work anymore.

We need voices in this country, voices that say the leeches are at the top, not at the bottom, that a millionaire who fires hundreds of people is a bigger problem than some poor kid who gets free school lunch.

I try to be one of those voices, but I’m just a chow mein sandwich. Kennedy is a bigger voice, and, like me, he sees that kitchen table, and he knows it means more than which football player “took a knee.”

Keep talking about the kitchen table, Joe. It’s the only thing that counts.

[Lord Jim]

LJ, have I mentioned lately how much I appreciate having a reasonable Republican of conscience to interact with in these times?

Thanks for being you.

Thanks for your nice words, BSG...

There are still a few of us "reasonable Republicans" about...

I'm sure that I'll get characterized as a "RINO" by some folks I know for making this decision, but tough titty...

I kept hoping that all the under-performing in the special elections, (culminating in the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama and a House seat in a district Trump won by 19 points) and the loss of fifty plus state legislative and local positions in special and off-year elections all over the country might have a positive effect and serve as a wake-up call to the GOP Congressional party...

In fact the exact opposite seems to be happening; the obstruction of justice collaborators have grown even more bold and brazen, and the leadership has become even more paralytically supine...

Maybe a massive electoral defeat will finally deliver the 2X4 to the head this mule needs to get its attention and finally get the party leadership to start disengaging from the poison of Trump and Trumpism...

If it doesn't learn that lesson from a major electoral spanking now, it will surely learn it from an extinction level political event in the not too distant future...

[rubato]

As incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs are phased out in favor of longer-lasting LEDs companies like Phillips and GE are going to lay people off. After a transition period they will be selling fewer and fewer bulbs each year.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

As incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs are phased out in favor of longer-lasting LEDs companies like Phillips and GE are going to lay people off. After a transition period they will be selling fewer and fewer bulbs each year.

yrs,
rubato

That’s not the reason for the loss of these jobs in Fall River - they’re being outsourced to Mexico where Phillips can pay a fraction of the US salaries, none of the mandated benefits MA requires, and thus maximize shareholder profits.

FALL RIVER — Employees in the manufacturing end of the Philips Lighting in the Industrial Park were given notice on Friday that production will end at the facility beginning the third quarter of this year, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

Melissa Kanter, the head of communications for Philips Lighting, said the affected employees were notified at 1 p.m. during a town hall meeting at the facility.

The closure of the manufacturing side of the facility will affect 160 workers and the transfer will be completed by the end of the first quarter in 2019.

Production will be transferred to their facility in Monterey, Mexico, said Kanter.

So. Much. WINNING!

[BoSoxGal]

Such a slap in the face to Fall River - which voted Republican at a higher rate than anytime since the early 70s.

Although Massachusetts voted for Hillary Clinton, the presidential election showed that this state might be a little less blue than it once was.

A case in point: Fall River. Donald Trump's call to scrap or rewrite trade deals and bring manufacturing jobs back to America resonated in a city that was once a major textile producer.

Fall River has been called the bluest city in the bluest state. And just to be clear, on Election Day, it did vote for Clinton. But the Trump message that won over so many working class voters across the industrial Midwest appeals to the same kind of voters in cities like Fall River.

Here's Trump in the first presidential debate in September, blaming Clinton for global trade deals:

Your husband signed NAFTA, which was one of the worst things that ever happened to the manufacturing industry. You go to New England, to Ohio, to Pennsylvania, and you will see devastation. NAFTA is the worse trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.

It's easy to find evidence of why Trump's message on trade found a receptive audience in Fall River, once home to a thriving textile industry. There's the sprawling red brick Duro textile factory building. Duro shut down last summer and its 157 workers were laid off. Today, the building is empty, surrounded by a metal cyclone fence, locked with a chain and padlock.

Like many in Fall River, Dan Botelho's parents were immigrants from Portugal. They ran a clothing manufacturing business, which Botelho says was killed by globalization in the time of NAFTA. "We used to actually have good jobs that people could support their families on," Botelho said. "They weren't getting rich, but they could support their families."

Botelho is a political activist who ran unsuccessfully for Congress four years ago as an independent. In many ways he represents what might be called a nascent political shift in Fall River. He says people of his parents' generation are still majority blue, but his generation is changing.

"I think folks in my generation who see the kind of lives our parents were able to provide us versus the lives we're able to provide our own kids, it's turning us a little purple, into that red area," Botelho said. "Because we've been hearing all our lives, 'We want to help you, we want to help you.' Bill Clinton came to Fall River during his presidency. We sent him off with some chorizo. And that was it. More factories left."

So Botelho voted for Trump, attracted by his promise to renegotiate trade deals to help struggling manufacturing centers like Fall River. But Fall River's 24-year-old Democratic mayor, Jasiel Correia, says it's doubtful that Trump can bring lost factory jobs back to his city.

"I don't think you're going to see textile factories again booming with smokestacks running in Fall River. That's not going to happen, that's in the past," Correia said. "I think his intent is to renegotiate a lot of that stuff, but I think he'll find that's going to be very difficult to do in a globalized world."

Correia says you can debate whether global trade deals like NAFTA caused the decline of manufacturing in cities like Fall River. But he says NAFTA did coincide with the decline — which gave Trump a powerful argument among voters in his city.

"If you look at the broader base of Fall River, you see a manufacturing base that was once 15,000 people and now it's down to 4,000," Correia said. "The key to Donald Trump is that he was very good at crafting that message so that the exact cog fit the exact hole it needed to fit. That was what a lot of people listened to, really grabbed on to and went out to the polls and supported him for."

Although Clinton carried Fall River, Trump received 50 percent more support in the city than Mitt Romney did four years ago. He captured 36 percent of the vote — the highest vote tally by a Republican in the city since Richard Nixon ran in 1972. And Clinton's margin of victory in Fall River was the smallest for a Democrat in the past four decades. Trump did even better in other Massachusetts towns — particularly in the rural western part of the state with high numbers of white working class residents.

David Steinhof is a dentist in Fall River, a former Republican candidate for state representative and a Trump supporter. He sees the election as evidence of a political realignment in Massachusetts — even in places like once true-blue Fall River.

"We have a lot of conservatives down our way — a lot of people who will typically think conservative, act conservative, and then turn around and vote the Democratic liberal candidate simply because they think they have to vote the party line," Steinhof said. "Well now it's time to swing the pendulum in the other direction, and I think that could happen."

Maybe so. But Mayor Correia doesn't see this last election as evidence of Massachusetts becoming redder. After all, Clinton carried the state with 61 percent of the vote — about the same as Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008.

"This shift with Trump, and I really, really believe this: Trump was almost like his own party," Correia said.

Correia does see the election as evidence that Trump tapped into a powerful set of concerns among a segment of white working class voters across much of the country, including in his city.

[Crackpot]

Rubato can’t resist a chance to shit on the working class when there’s a sufficient “liberal” cover for his contempt.

[rubato]

Philips is a Dutch company so one could say that all US plants were 'outsourced' from the Netherlands.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Philips is a Dutch company so one could say that all US plants were 'outsourced' from the Netherlands.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Philips operates in 60 countries worldwide via subsidiaries; I think the company owes a debt of gratitude to the USA that might compel ethical leaders to preserve American jobs.

On 9 May 1940, the Philips directors learned that the German invasion of the Netherlands was to take place the following day. Having prepared for this, Anton Philips and his son in law Frans Otten, as well as other Philips family members, fled to the United States, taking a large amount of the company capital with them. Operating from the US as the North American Philips Company, they managed to run the company throughout the war. At the same time, the company was moved (on paper) to the Netherlands Antilles to keep it out of German hands.

Their earnings in 2014, last year noted on the company website, were close to 7 billion. But those shareholders need more, more, MORE! Fuck the working classes.

I’ll never buy a product from them again. Probably can’t boycott them entirely due to imaging technology, but it’s something.

[dales]

Rubato can’t resist a chance to shit on the working class when there’s a sufficient “liberal” cover for his contempt.

I recall back in the CSB days his favorite retort was that "They should've studied harder in school".

Yes, blame the victims.

How "republican" of you rube.

TooFunny!

[Crackpot]

What can I say our rube is the living embodiment of all the negative characteristics attributed to liberals (with the exception of liberty his definition of liberal is soomewhere between “bond villain” and “nazi anti-Jewish propaganda poster”))

[rubato]

Blaming everything on 'outsourcing"is the last refuge of the wholly ignorant. Even more stupid than Trump.

the idea that Philips owes more or anything different to the U.S. than they owe to the other 60 countries they do business in is childish. The doctrine of economic infants. You make me laugh.

yrs,
rubato

[Crackpot]

Being completely sanguine about outsourcing and it’s effects on local economies is exactly why the democrats lost the election despite Trump getting less votes than Romney. A city can handle a factory being outsourced. A one or two factory town can’t.

[Jarlaxle]

Rubato can’t resist a chance to shit on the working class when there’s a sufficient “liberal” cover for his contempt.

Rube can't resist a chance to shit on anybody...he is a shitlord.

[rubato]

Being completely sanguine about outsourcing and it’s effects on local economies is exactly why the democrats lost the election despite Trump getting less votes than Romney. A city can handle a factory being outsourced. A one or two factory town can’t.

Being sanguine about outsourcing means I understand that losing jobs sewing t-shirts together in Georgia means that we lose low-wage, mind-deadening and high-injury jobs in exchange for t-shirts which everyone can buy for a fraction of the cost and Hondurans will get jobs which increase their cash income so they can buy i-phones. Cheaper t-shirts means that everyone who buys them, not just a tiny cadre of factor workers, hos more money left over to buy other goods and services. i-phones are made overseas as well but the highest paid jobs are in the U.S. at Apple and most of the profits go to Apple in the U.S. (The same is true for Nike &c)



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

What can I say our rube is the living embodiment of all the negative characteristics attributed to liberals (with the exception of liberty his definition of liberal is soomewhere between “bond villain” and “nazi anti-Jewish propaganda poster”))

What you can say is limited by your lack of understanding and stunted analytical ability.

yrs,
rubato