Thu
Jan 3 2019
04:02 pm
Say hello to Madam Speaker. Again.
By: R. Neal

Nancy Pelosi is again Speaker of the House.

(Fifteen Democrats did not vote for her. Rep. Jim Cooper was one of them.)

Topics:
Factchecker's picture

Cooper really sucks.

Submitted by Factchecker on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 4:21pm.

Cooper really sucks.

Treehouse's picture

That's bad

Submitted by Treehouse on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 4:37pm.

I suppose he'd vote for Marsha Blackburn if he could. Good grief.

Mike Daugherty's picture

Any Democrat that voted

Submitted by Mike Daugherty on Fri, 2019/01/04 - 6:14pm.
(in reply to Treehouse)

Any Democrat that voted against Pelosi is misguided. Cooper has the experience to know better. He is a disappointment.

cafkia's picture

See, here is the problem with

Submitted by cafkia on Fri, 2019/01/04 - 7:48pm.
(in reply to Mike Daugherty)

See, here is the problem with your position.

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means."

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

Even if it is a good thing that she won, and I am certainly unwilling to stipullate that, it flies in the face of common and accepted knowledge that she should have had no opposition. Whether it is within the Dem party or within the USA or within the world, history and wisdom say that giving her absolute power would be a mistake.

cafkia's picture

I don't know what Cooper's

Submitted by cafkia on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 6:11pm.

I don't know what Cooper's reasons for voting against her were but I agree with the vote.

Probably surprising no one, I would much prefer a Progressive in the position rather than centrist establishment Dem. Even more important, at some point in the near future, I would like for the Left to start actually being the smart portion of the political divide and base their opinions of where a given politician resides on the spectrum based on their votes and actions rather than allowing the reich-wing demagogues to dictate who is Liberal.

The rate of the rate of technological change is increasing. The rate of social change is increasing. The degradation in economic change for the mass of our society is increasing. The time for milquetoast, slow and steady, nearly imperceptible improvement is past. We need leadership that is up to speed and ready to accelerate. I have no reason to believe that individual is Nancy Pelosi.

R. Neal's picture

Bills passed on Pelosi's

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 7:59pm.
(in reply to cafkia)

Bills passed on Pelosi's watch:

Affordable Care Act
Dodd-Frank
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act
The Food Safety Modernization Act
Raising minimum wage
Hate Crimes Prevention Act
Office of Congressional Ethics

One could argue that some of these were too little, too late. Or, "slow and steady" baby steps. In these times, though, she sounds pretty progressive to me. She is, after all, one of those California Liberal Democrats.

R. Neal's picture

P.S. I had misgivings about

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 8:12pm.
(in reply to cafkia)

P.S. I had misgivings about Pelosi as Speaker. But they were political, not ideological.

She will be a lightning rod for the hate and vitriol of Trump and his 35 percenters. She will be the central theme of Trump's reelection.

I've decided that's OK. She's tough and ready to take one (many) for the team. And give some back.

Somebody's picture

Anybody in that position will

Submitted by Somebody on Fri, 2019/01/04 - 12:19pm.
(in reply to R. Neal)

Anybody in that position will be the lightning rod for the Trump base. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is already a favorite lightning rod as well, and they’d never heard of her a year ago.

cafkia's picture

Nothing you have said

Submitted by cafkia on Mon, 2019/01/07 - 4:21pm.
(in reply to R. Neal)

Nothing you have said actually argues against anything I said.

For the record, I like AOC's energy, enthusiasm and positions but I do think she needs to learn how to Congress prior to moving into leadership. OTOH, she(we) can't afford to have her, and the other youngsters, wait too long because by default, she has to learn from those invested in doing things the old ways.

Most days the military doesn't simply put the guys with the most impressive medal collection in charge. Pelosi has earned plenty of accolades but that does not mean she is ready to grasp new technologies and their impact and then adjust her position as quickly as will be needed. Even if she was, the donors that she would have to explain it to are not. She was a reasonable choice for the last battle but I suspect the battles to come are outside her scope of understanding.

I would love to be wrong.

R. Neal's picture

Bonus: If/when Trump and

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 8:16pm.

Bonus: If/when Trump and Pence get arrested, Pelosi is next man (woman) up.

calloway1972's picture

Lol

Submitted by calloway1972 on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 9:25pm.
(in reply to R. Neal)

This comment made me smile.

It's 2 years till 4 more years and I think deep down you know that.

R. Neal's picture

Not deep down. Straight up.

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 9:41pm.
(in reply to calloway1972)

Not deep down. Straight up. Trump will be reelected. I called it in 2016, and I've already previously called it for 2020.

Our nation's voters are even dumber than Trump. And our media continues to enable him.

Sad.

Somebody's picture

I’m going to go ahead and

Submitted by Somebody on Fri, 2019/01/04 - 12:27pm.
(in reply to R. Neal)

I’m going to go ahead and call it that Trump will not be re-elected in 2020. There is an array of scenarios that will not get him there and very few that would. A lot of bizarre things had to line up for Trump to win in 2016. The probability of a similar concordance of weirdness in 2020 is actually very low.

Rachel's picture

There's nobody better at

Submitted by Rachel on Thu, 2019/01/03 - 9:11pm.

There's nobody better at tactics and counting votes than Pelosi. We need her right now. And I'm pleased to see she's working to bring younger members into the leadership.

Mike Daugherty's picture

Thank you Rachel. You are so

Submitted by Mike Daugherty on Fri, 2019/01/04 - 6:04pm.
(in reply to Rachel)

Thank you Rachel. You are so right!

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