Who says House Democrats haven't done anything since retaking the House?

One of the biggest claims to come out of this rapidly-concluding 2019 is that, since becoming the majority party in the US House eleven months ago, the Democrats haven't done a cotton-picking thing.

Don't believe it.

For even one millisecond.

Besides turning Donald Trump into just the third chief executive to get impeached, the Nancy Pelosi-led House of Representatives has passed the following bills:

*HR 1 (the For the People Act of 2019)
*HR 5 (the Equality Act)
*HR 7 (the Paycheck Fairness Act)
*HR 8 (calling for background checks on gun sales)
*HR 9 (the Climate Action Now Act)
*HJ Resolution 37 and SJ Resolution 7 (both directing the removal of Uncle Sam's forces from unauthorized fighting in Yemen)
*House Congressional Resolution 24 (calling for the Mueller Report to be made public)
*House Resolution 183 (condemning anti-Semitism and condemning anti-Muslim intolerance and bigotry against non-Caucasian people)
*HR 259 (the Medicare Extenders Act of 2019)
*HR 271 (to condemn Trump's efforts to take health care away from rank-and-file Americans)
*HR 375 (amending the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to reaffirm the Interior Department's green light to take land into trust for indigenous tribes)
*HR 986 (Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019)
*HR 987 (designed to strengthen health care and lower prescription drug costs)
*HR 1500 (Consumers First Act)
*HR 1585 (the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019)
*HR 1644 (made to save the Internet)
*HR 1994 (SECURE Act/Gold Star Family Tax Relief Act)
*HR 2480 (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act)
*HR 2513 (Corporate Transparency Act)
*HR 2722 (the Securing America's Federal Elections Act)
*HR 4617 [the SHIELD Act...drafted to make sure what happened (namely, Russian interference) in the 2016 election doesn't take place again]
*On 12-19-2019, the House passed the USMCA agreement (the replacement for NAFTA), 385-41.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

By 11-15-2019, the House had passed almost 400 bills (resolutions excluded)...but when you add this country's Senate to the equation, you find that in total, Congress had, by said date, passed just 70 bills.
 
Most of the bills still stalled in the Mitch McConnell-run chamber are common-sense ones. What's more, legislation such as background checks, 'Net neutrality, and a reauthorized Violence Against Women Act has gathered proven bipartisan support.

McConnell's Senate thinks nothing of confirming 150 of Trump's nominees to the federal judiciary.

It's all because Senate Republicans are unwilling to take the tough votes Pelosi's House has made...and laid out there for the upper chamber to take up.

And...yes...USMCA now awaits a Senate vote, too.

Much of the information you're reading came from Ella Nilsen's 11-29-2019 article on https://vox.com, "House Democrats have passed nearly 400 bills. Trump and Republicans are ignoring them." 

We'll see what happens with these bills in the months to come as vanloads of Senate Republicans (including Moscow Mitch himself)

fight to save their hides as they come up for reelection.
 
 

 

I wasn't going to let construction work stop me from voting!

Well, yesterday, I did it.

Finally got it done.

At 12:20 PM (Central time), I walked inside Dundee Presbyterian Church (52nd St. and Underwood Ave.) to cast a midterm ballot.

Took me 25 minutes to go through the whole procedure...from giving the Election Day attendants my name all the way to filling out a two-page ballot.

And once it was all done, I was able to join millions of other Americans in scratching an itch that had been festering for two years.

Two long years.

Two excruciatingly long years.

Two years of- let's face it- this country's Republicans setting the stage for full-fledged fascist rule, what with the Elephants dominating all phases of government...from the national level all the way to (in too many places) the local level. 

Speaking of local level...it seemed as if Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert (she's a Republican) and her staff were determined to make it difficult for folks in the precinct around Dundee Presbyterian (and people living in the precinct centered by nearby Brownell-Talbot School) to get to their respective polling places. 

Roadwork along 52nd Street gave the game away.

So...I ended up parking on Webster Street and walking across Happy Hollow Boulevard to get to the church. 

And when voting was done and I left the polling place, it felt good.

But I ended up spending most of the next ten hours on pins and needles.

I'd feared that the Republicans had retained both divisions of Congress.

They didn't. 

The Democrats took back the House while the Republicans added to their Senate majority. And according to www.dailykos.com, the Elephants won 18 gubernatorial races while the Donkeys got 13 of 'em.

I didn't get everything I voted for (Kara Eastman and Jane Raybould didn't unseat, respectively, Don Bacon and Deb Fischer, while Pete Ricketts got reelected as Nebraska's governor), but I'm glad about the fact that in two months, this country's House having more Democrats in it than Republicans should help to bring checks and balances back to Washington. 

And here's hoping that Nancy Pelosi and Co. investigate, investigate, and investigate.

And oh, yes...start impeachment proceedings.

Pronto.

 

Dear Democrats in Georgia's 6th House District:

You've got no excuses now.

If you want Donald John Trump out of there, you're going to have to vote for Thomas Jonathan Ossoff this coming Tuesday.

That's all there is to it.

You just can't afford to sit this one out...the way some of you not only sat out last year's US presidential election, but also the 2010 and 2014 midterms. 

Some people here in America don't think any sort of anti-Trump resistance is taking place. After all, Democrats are 0 for 2 in special elections thus far this year. Kansans in what used to be Mike Pompeo's US House district rejected James Thompson, the Democrat who was trying to take the seat out of Republican hands. 

And Montanans just got through demonstrating that they wanted Republican Greg Gianforte (who beat up a reporter, Ben Jacobs of The Guardian, on the eve of Big Sky Country's US House election, the effort to replace Ryan Zinke) instead of Democrat Rob Quist. 

You folks are the firewall. You can't afford to wait until next year and cross your fingers.

Registered Democrats have GOT to end their history of staying away from polling places whenever there's a midterm election or a special election.   

I mean, don't you understand, after all these years, that if you don't go out and cast a ballot, you give the opposition the choice?

Don't you remember how millions and millions and millions of Americans put their lives on the line- even gave up their lives- to expand the right to vote beyond White male landowners? 

You've got no excuses. None.

The cat didn't eat your homework. What's more, if you electronically turned in your homework, the cat didn't walk across your laptop and hit "Delete."

Matter of fact, I researched Ossoff's platform and that of his opponent, Karen Handel (who, in 2007, became the first elected Republican to serve as the Peach State's secretary of state). 

*First of all, the 30-year-old Ossoff has made suggestions that could save the US government $16 billion (an assertion Politifact agrees with). For example, if the government consolidated its data centers, it'd mean $5.4 billion extra to spend. And if the Department of Defense could try strategic sourcing, $4 billion would be freed up.

*If our businesses played with money the way America's government does, those firms would be in deep doo-doo. TJO wants to bring our government up to private-sector standards. (Think about this: The General Accounting Office found out that, in fiscal 2014, Uncle Sam made improper payments totaling $124.7 billion. Also, GAO found out 6.5 million active Social Security numbers have been set aside for people over the age of 112...despite the fact that only 42 such people the world over are currently drawing breath!)

*Jon Ossoff wants to promote high-tech and biotech research...at a time when today's GOP-led Congress wants to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control, one of Georgia's top fifteen employers. 

*On top of that, he's out to prioritize STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs, colleges, universities, and technical schools. Ossoff would like to let college students refinance their loan repayment programs and, in the process, reap the benefits of lower interest rates.

*Atlanta native Ossoff supports abortion rights and access to contraceptives.

*He doesn't want nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned. (With those nonviolent drug offenders clogging up the jails, where's the room for the convicted murderers, sex offenders, what have you?)

*Jon won't raise your taxes; in fact, he's in favor of lowering taxes for small businesses.

*Ossoff wants the United States to stay in the Paris climate accord.

*Although he doesn't want a single-payer health-care system, he's in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act the law of the land. (Don't get him started on the proposed ACA replacement, the so-called American Health Care Act.)

*To top it all off, this son of an Australian mother will work for comprehensive immigration reform...the kind that strengthens enforcement along the US-Mexico border and makes a citizenship path for America's 11 million undocumented immigrants.

If you flip this platform around, you can just imagine what Handel's platform looks like. 

Still, here it is:

*Handel wants to repeal the ACA (as did Tom Price, the new HHS secretary whose House seat Ossoff and Handel are after) and replace it with the AHCA...a proposal that, contrary to Republican assertions, reduces protections for preexisting conditions (in addition to taking health insurance away from at least 23 million Americans!). 

*She's made it clear that she opposes the minimum wage: "I do not support a livable wage."  
*Handel opposes abortion rights, government funding of Planned Parenthood, and embryonic stem-cell research.

*Karen wants to limit Uncle Sam's role in combating climate change; she'd rather leave it up to the states and their cities. What's more, she doesn't believe that we human beings are the biggest reason the world's average temperature has gone up.

*And, of course, Handel doesn't want an automatic (or any kind of) path to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants. 

*Do you remember when the 55-year-old Handel was an executive with Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure? Remember when, in 2012, the foundation pulled back a $700,000 grant to Planned Parenthood to fund mammograms and other breast-cancer-related services?

The cutoff was completely and totally political.

And it had Handel's fingerprints all over it.

The same woman who purged voter rolls as soon as she became Georgia's secretary of state five years earlier. 

So there you are, Democrats in GA-6. Take it from me, a man who, in 1986, failed to cast a ballot in an historic election here in Nebraska.

Two women- a first here in these fifty states- fought for Bob Kerrey's gubernatorial seat as he sought a seat in the US Senate. Instead of former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis keeping the governor's mansion in Democratic hands,

State Treasurer Kay Orr put it back in the GOP's lap.

My excuse: "I ran out of time before I had to go to work."

I got raked over the coals for my decision...and ever since, I've made it a point to cast a ballot every chance I could get.

This one's too important to pass up...especially if you want Trump impeached and then convicted (before he and his people do further damage to America and its reputation).

Please...get up off your excuses and VOTE for Jon Ossoff! 

Sincerely, Jim Boston

Northwest Iowa, Haven't You Had Enough?

I was born in Iowa, raised in Iowa, and educated in Iowa.

And I'm ashamed that US Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was born in the Hawkeye State, too.

Matter of fact, I'm heavily ashamed.   

I remember when he decided he wanted to go out for a seat in this country's House of Representatives. 

The year was 2002, and King was seeking the seat that, at the time, was held by fellow Republican Tom Latham. (Redistricting sent Latham to head for another Iowa Congressional district to fight to keep his place in the US House.) 

The reconfigured 5th District- the prize King was looking for- included Council Bluffs. (Meanwhile, Latham ended up having to fight another Republican incumbent, Greg Ganske, for the right to represent Iowa's 4th District.) 

At the time, I read an Omaha World-Herald article that talked about one of King's early campaign stops...a church in Council Bluffs. In the article, it talked about how some African-American people were standing in the back of the same room where the then Iowa state senator was campaigning.

Storm Lake native King asked: "Is this the back of the bus?" 

I thought to myself: "Jim...can you say 'red flag?'"  

King (a state senator since 1997) went on to top three other GOP hopefuls in the 5th District's House primary; on 11-5-2002, he crushed his Democratic opponent, a Council Bluffs city council member named Paul Shomshor, 62%-38%. 

SAK grabbed every county in the district except Pottawattamie...the one that contains Council Bluffs. 

He went on to win the next four elections by landslides, winning reelection during that eight-year period by an average margin of 26.5%. In 2008 and 2010, King snared all 32 counties in his district. 

Then came 2012.

Because of the 2010 Census, a House seat was taken away from the Hawkeye State. (Iowa's population grew by 4% between 2000 and 2010- not nearly enough of an increase to allow the state to keep five places in the 435-member House of Reps.)

While the new 3rd District (Southwest Iowa) resulted in Latham having to fight Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell for the right to represent it, the reshaped 4th District (Northwest Iowa) placed King in competition with Christie Vilsack, the former Iowa first lady who moved back to the state to try to kick King out of Congress. 

King went forth, 53%-45%; then in 2014, he mowed down Jim Mowrer, 62%-38%. 

You know what hurt about King's win over Vilsack?

Six months after launching his sixth term of office, the man who calls Kiron, IA home popped off about proposed immigration legislation: "For every [undocumented immigrant] who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds- and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

I cringed when I found out ol' Kingie said this.

*It wasn't the first time I cringed over something King said or did as a US representative. Three years earlier, King defended the use of racial profiling by law-enforcement officials: "It's not wrong to use race or other indicators for the sake of identifying people that are violating the law." 

*In an early (2005) House vote, King voted against the $52 billion package earmarked for victims of Hurricane Katrina. His excuse: "Whatever happened to fiscal responsibility?" 

I'll bet the next time a major atmospheric disaster hits Northwest Iowa, Steven Arnold King- if he's still in the House- will be the first to scream for money to repair the damage (especially if a tornado levels Kiron).  

*A lot of the information going into this post came from Wikipedia; because of wikipedia.org, I found out that King has a Dixie Swastika (oops...I mean Confederate flag) on his office desk. 

Didn't somebody tell this man that Iowa was part of the Union during this country's Civil War? 

*King's one of the many, many reasons the Republicans can't draw Latino/a/x American voters...thanks to remarks like this about HUD Secretary Julian Castro: "What does Julian Castro know? Does he know that I'm as Hispanic and Latino as he?"

Yeah, Steven.

And I'm Spongebob Squarepants.  

*And how about Steve King's recent efforts to prevent Harriet Tubman's profile from replacing that of Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill?

In trying to block this country's Treasury Department from modifying the currency, King called the attempt to put Tubman on the $20 "sexist" and "racist."

To him, it's not about the Underground Railroad's conductor. "It's about keeping the picture on the $20. Y'know? Why would you want to change that? I am a conservative. I like to keep what we have." 

It's a good thing King was in high school in 1964 (the year he turned fifteen)...when Benjamin Franklin's profile on the half dollar was replaced with John F. Kennedy's. (But then, King probably wrote a letter to the editor of his high-school paper to complain about the change.)

*If you're not cringing along with me right now, maybe this is the tip of the iceberg for you: King's equally infamous remarks delivered at last week's Cleveland Hatefest (oops...I mean Republican National Convention). 

Iowa's longest-tenured current US rep appeared on MSNBC's coverage of this year's GOP confab. He was part of a panel moderated by Chris Hayes (of All In fame); Esquire columnist Charles Pierce was there, too.

Pierce talked about how the 2016 Republican assembly could be the last one where "old White people would command the Republican Party's attention." 

The message made King bristle, so he said: "I'd ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?" 

Well, if this gun-rights advocate from Northwest Iowa had calmed down for a little bit, he would've realized the Chinese gave the world gunpowder. And he would've come to understand that we use Arabic numerals (that's right, 0 through 9) in our everyday lives.

Plus, King would've come to dig that the corn harvester (what's Iowa without corn?) came from the mind of Henry Blair, a Marylander who came up with this invention in 1834. 

Blair was the first African American (or one of the first) to receive a patent after coming up with an invention. 

And all that's just scratching the surface. 

So, there you have it. If you live in Sioux City, LeMars, Spencer, Storm Lake, Spirit Lake, or some other community in Northwest Iowa, ask yourself what Steven A. King has done for your House district...other than keeping it in the headlines. 

Are you really proud to get "represented" by the man InsideGov labeled as the least productive member of Congress? (What legislation of his has King managed to get out of committee?)

What keeps you voting for this proven bigot?

Mourning in America

Did you vote this past Tuesday (if not sooner)? 

I did.

At a little after 12:00 Noon, I arrived at my neighborhood polling place (Omaha's Dundee Presbyterian Church) and spent the next 45 minutes filling out my four-page ballot, being careful to fill the circles completely. (Lots of candidates and lots of special ballot issues this time.)

Yes, I got home just in time to rest a little bit before going off to my factory job. Man, I was still fired up about having voted.

When I got home from work and turned on my TV set to find out just how this year's US midterm election went, I was furious.  

MSNBC's and CNN's election-coverage hosts were talking about how the Nuts had just snagged complete control of Congress.

That's right. I said "Nuts."   

The Associated Press had reported that America's voters, as a group, were in a funk over the state of the nation's economy. The online article that AP reporter turned in talked about how a sizable number of electors were displeased over the way Barack Obama had been doing things lately. 

What's more, the report stated that, in general, those who cast ballots this past Tuesday didn't like the leadership of either major political party. 

That didn't stop most voters from giving the Nuts enough seats to give them 52 Senate seats all together when the 114th Congress convenes on 1-7-2015. To top it all off, voters enabled the Nuts to extend their lead in the House. 

That's right. I said "Nuts." (After all, Republican leaders had chased the moderates out of that party...leaving the Nuts to dominate it.) 

The way I tell it, voters had no good reason to give the so-called GOP control of the US Senate while giving the party more US House seats than it's presently got. 

Voters: You really believe the people who shut down this country's government and who continually ignore your needs because you don't have Karl Rove's or David Koch's or Charlie Koch's money actually have your back?

This past Tuesday, you poured gasoline on an already-raging fire.

And when John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Co. get through, we're all going to pay. 

You've signaled that you've given up on this country. That's the only way I see it. 
.
Today's Republicans- especially the Washington ones- have already made it clear that they don't care about passing jobs bills or infrastructure bills or immigration-reform bills or stronger gun-control laws or raising the minimum wage (let alone making the Affordable Care Act- whose guts came from Republican minds to begin with- better).

They only care about getting Obama out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It's a question of time when it comes to how fast McConnell will call for a vote to repeal the ACA...and another one to impeach the nation's first non-Caucasian chief executive (simply because he's non-Caucasian).

You voters, as a whole, let that happen...and so did the ones who wouldn't darken a polling place this week.

Tuesday night, a coworker at my job asked some of her fellow crewmembers if they'd gone to the polls that day. 

It HURT to hear some of those coworkers say "no," let alone hear their excuses: "I didn't study up." "I didn't know it was Election Day." "I forgot." 

Not even the presence of a minimum-wage-increase initiative here in Nebraska could get those folks to the polls. (Luckily, this state's lowest wage, now $7.25 per hour, will go up...to $9.00 an hour by 2016.)  

And what about the Wisconsinites who've been complaining about Gov. Scott Walker's antics...only to let him get back in? And the Kansans who've taken their governor, former US Sen. Sam Brownback, to task over his gutting education funds in the Sunflower State...only to reelect him anyway?

These people had better not complain the next time their governors throw rank-and-file citizens under the bus!  

Now I've got a message for the Democrats who lost a couple of days ago (especially the ones seeking national office or trying to upgrade their national gigs):

STOP BEING SO DAMN MEALY-MOUTHED!!! TELL PEOPLE WHERE YOU REALLY STAND...AND DO IT AS FORCEFULLY AS POSSIBLE!!! 

Democrats keep throwing away all sorts of votes in midterm elections because these people just won't stand up for their accomplishments. For instance, instead of sticking up for the ACA, too many Donkeys ran away from it! 

Gutless!

Alison Lundergan Grimes really didn't deserve to trade her secretary-of-state-in-Kentucky job for a US Senate seat from the Bluegrass State. It hurts to say that...but when Grimes didn't have the guts to say she voted for Obama (in at least one leap year), she probably lost a ton of support.

And Bruce Braley ultimately cut his own throat by saying that Chuck Grassley was just a farmer without a law degree. Not even an endorsement from The Des Moines Register could bail Braley out. (Sure didn't help Willard Romney in 2012.) 

You just don't knock farmers in Iowa...home of some of the world's most productive topsoil. I spent most of my childhood in Des Moines, and even I know you don't knock the men and women who feed the world.

What's more, I wanted Braley to win in the very state I came from! 

Instead, voters in the Hawkeye State elected Joni Ernst...only because of her cute little "hog castration" commercials.

You know what? Ernst is going to prove just as embarrassing to Iowans as- if not more embarrassing than- the newly-reelected Steve King. 

I can imagine all the meetings Ernst, Thom Tillis (North Carolina's newest US senator), and Ted Cruz are going to have to spread their nut-job ideas. 

So, there you are. I'm still angry about what just went down.

It's hard for me to see whatever silver linings emerged from this century's fourth US midterm election...even the fact that some Florida voters kicked the oily, despicable Steve Southerland out of the US House and replaced him with Gwen Graham, or the fact that here in the Cornhusker State, some of us voters threw Lee Terry Jr. out on his rear end and enabled Brad Ashford to get the seat. 

Now Terry the Younger can enjoy that "good house" a lot longer. 

Still, I'm at the point where I'm reluctant to turn on my TV set and watch the 114th Congress spend the next two years doing further damage to the American Brand.

But then, too many of us asked for this.

SHAME ON US!!!

That's It! He's Got to Go!

I wanted to write this post a week ago...but circumstances prevented me from getting to it until now.

I'm still steamed at the campaign ads brought out by the National Republican Congressional Committee in support of US Rep. Lee Terry Jr. (R-NE) labeling his biggest challenger, Nebraska State Sen. Brad Ashford (D-Omaha), as "soft on crime," and trying to tie him not only with convicted mass murderer Nikko Jenkins...but also with the Islamic State terrorists who've recently, among other things, lopped journalists' heads off.  

Terry's ads are a complete and total pack of lies. That's all there is to it.   

In one plug, Terry and the NRCC claim Ashford supports Nebraska's "Good Time Law," which gives prisoners a day off for every 24-hour period they spend behind bars without breaking prison rules. (This law dates back to the early 1990s.) 

Jenkins was sentenced to 21 years in jail...only to spend just a decade behind bars. (Didn't matter that while still in the pokey, Jenkins time and time again showed violent behavior.)

He was let out of prison last year...after which he killed four people in ten days. 

The NRCC's next commercial for Terry Jr. really took the cake, linking Ashford with the Islamic State people. 

That's today's Republican Party for you. When its operatives see one of their party's incumbents/candidates in trouble, they take the "Willie Horton" page out of Lee Atwater's book.  

Today's Republicans just love to sow fear rather than hope.

And then their spokespersons have the NERVE to wonder (often out loud) why their party continues to lose ground among voters.

I remember when Ashford was a Republican. Then he became an independent in order to try to get what was then (2013) Jim Suttle's job as mayor of the Big O. 

Now I see why the 64-going-on-65-year-old Ashford switched from the Elephants (as a state senator, he pledged the GOP from 1987 to 1995) to the Donkeys:

Ashford (back in the Unicameral since 2006) got sick and tired of all those Republican antics...especially that party's stunts of the last five years.  

Brad Ashford wants to get this country's minimum wage increased to $10.10 per hour, would like to target tax cuts to America's middle-income families, and is out to invest in the nation's education system and the country's crumbling infrastructure.

Terry Jr. doesn't want any of these things.

In fact, this namesake son of a legendary local news anchor (maybe you watched Lee Terry Sr. on KETV's Newswatch 7 during the 1970s) has participated in all fifty (and counting) House votes to strike down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010...and all fifty times, Lee Jr. has come out in favor of repealing this law.  

Ashford supports the immigration reform bill recently passed by the US Senate (the bill that puts border security first and also includes a tough-but-fair pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently living in these fifty states- and the pathway does come with a criminal background check, a requirement to repay back taxes, and a heavy fine, among other things).  

Lee Terry Jr. doesn't support the bill...and it's simply because of its pathway to citizenship. (How would he feel about the bill if the lion's share of undocumented immigrants coming to these shores were from Ukraine rather than Mexico?) 

Ann Ferlic Ashford's husband has said he'll reach across the aisle if elected to the US House.

Robyn Terry's husband isn't the moderate he and his supporters make him out to be. What's more, since LNT Jr. got to the nation's capital in 1999, his efforts to reach across the aisle have been some kind of rare. According to ballotpedia.org, the 52-going-on-53-year-old former Omaha City Councilmember has voted with his fellow Republicans 94.4% of the time here in 2014. 

During last winter's highly-infamous sequester, many US representatives gave up their salaries.

Not Lee Nathan Terry Jr.  

He decided to keep getting those paychecks on account of his and Robyn's ownership of "a good house" and the need to put one of their three sons through college.  

To top it all off, Terry fils bragged that he didn't give a crap about what happened to all those families affected by that sequester.  

How do you think Terry pere would've acted at a time like this?  

You know, Lee Terry Sr. wanted this US House seat...back in 1976.

But fellow Omahan John J. Cavanaugh defeated LNT Sr. and held onto that House gig for two terms.

Ashford's hoping to be the second Democrat since Cavanaugh (and first since Peter Hoagland) to represent the Cornhusker State's Second House District.

If you live here in Nebraska's Second House District, why don't you ask yourself: "What's Lee Terry Jr. ever done to help us rank-and-file citizens?"

If your answer turns out to be "nothing, nada, zippo," join me in getting Terry the Younger out of Washington, DC and sending Ashford there to replace him.

See you at the polls on 11-4-2014!

Dear Speaker Boehner:

I'm furious with you. I'm just going to come right out and say it.

The night of 1-20-2009, you and Mitch McConnell got together and called a meeting of your fellow Washington Republicans to get them NOT to work with the man who'd just gotten through raising his right hand and repeating after John Roberts.

You know who I'm talking about.  

And, not long after his- Barack Obama's- signature legislation became law, and it was time for the employee mandate to kick in, you begged him to delay it a year.  

AND NOW YOU WANT TO SUE THE PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE WENT AHEAD AND DELAYED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT'S EMPLOYEE MANDATE!!  

You and your fellow Republicans have been after this man right from the start. McConnell couldn't get his wish to turn Obama into a one-term chief executive, so now you and your House Republicans are trying this. 

Hmph.

This stunt wouldn't even take place if you and your fellow Elephants had resolved to take care of the business America's citizens- not America's 500 largest corporations- had asked you and other politicians to work on.

People want to see this country's minimum wage increased. They want to see this country's borders secured. They want Americans of both genders to realize complete access to health-care products and services. Americans want better, more effective gun-control laws. They also want this nation's infrastructure repaired.

Mr. Boehner, your very district is one of way too many with bridges on the brink of collapsing.

AND YOU DON'T EVEN CARE!!!  

Matter of fact, the ONLY thing you and the other Washington GOPers care about is kicking the first non-Caucasian American to run this country's government out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

You'd do the same thing to Jim Clyburn or Cory Booker or Sheila Jackson Lee or Maxine Waters or Bobby Rush...let alone to Bill Cosby or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey. 

I remember when Steve King was cracking on some Mexican children and talking about how their thighs supposedly are "as big as cantaloupes," the better to hide illegal drugs.

I was hoping you'd get up the courage to reprimand this bigot from Kiron, IA.

YOU DIDN'T!!  

In fact, I feel you're very proud of the extremists in your party. 

After all, these extremists transformed you from House Republican leader into the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Boehner, I wish you'd find courage before you wrap up your tenure as a US representative from Ohio, let alone House Speaker.

And I wish SOMEONE in Cincinnati or its Ohio suburbs would get the courage to challenge you.  

Throw away your cowardice and start getting your fellow House Republicans to vote on the things rank-and-file Americans are worried about.

You and your fellow Republicans are the biggest threats to American democracy today. 

And it's all because you REFUSE to offer real solutions to get the country back on its feet. All you offer is opposition to any efforts to get the United States really humming again.

And the rest of the world can see that!  

Do you really care?

Sincerely, Jim Boston

Yeah, I Know...Reince Priebus Is Gleeful Right Now

On 6-25-2013, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that the Republican National Committee chief had been praying for over the last four years.

The higher court, for all intents and purposes, destroyed the Voting Rights Act of 1965...the very law that promised that every American old enough to cast a ballot could finally do so without having to fight poll taxes, trick questions from election commissioners and their lieutenants, and so on.  

The SCOTUS vote went 5-4...and you can just about guess who the five justices are and who nominated them for the Supreme Court.

Last week's ruling struck down Congress' power to actually enforce the Voting Rights Act, a law whose fifth section requires Federal permission for certain states to make changes in how those states regulate elections...because those states, coming into 1965, had such a terrible history of enforcing the right to vote.

In 2006, both divisions of Congress overwhelmingly approved renewing Section 5 of the VRA...but didn't renew the coverage formula in Section 4 (despite SCOTUS warning the US senators and US representatives to update said formula).

On the other hand, those same elected officials didn't REALLY think that this new US senator from Illinois was going to make a White House bid for 2008. And they were scared that New York's newest US senator- the nation's previous First Lady- was going to try to move back to 1600.  

Instead, the Democrats have won the last two US presidential elections and four out of the last six...and could make it three wins in a row if they take the 2016 White House Derby.

Young voters of all colors helped transform Barack Obama from that new US senator from the Land of Lincoln into the nation's 44th chief executive. Helped get Obama reelected, too.

And so did most African-American, Asian-American, and Hispanic-American voters.  

And that's what Chief Justice John Roberts and associates Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito had in mind when they decided to strike down the VRA's Section 4.

They weren't thinking about the US Constitution.

Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, and Scalia were only thinking about helping the Republican Party.

You notice how all those states that had put in voter-suppression laws since 2009- only to see them struck down by previous Supreme Court decisions- immediately put those laws back in force.

And that means Jim Crow isn't really dead...just asleep.

Hey, dig this: History repeats itself.

You know why history repeats itself?

It's because we human beings, especially when it comes to government decisions, just don't learn from our mistakes...let alone the ones made by our mentors and by their mentors. (We've had TWO World Wars, for crying out loud!)

The justices have now made it clear that it's up to Congress to cook up a new Section 4 formula- one for the early 21st Century- and save the VRA. 

And the five justices I named off know it.

Come on now...do you REALLY think the 113th Congress- the second straight one with a Republican-led House- has the guts to take this kind of action, knowing darn good and well Washington's Republicans are so unwilling to get behind ANY legislation that rank-and-file Americans actually want?  

When the John Boehner-led House passes any legislation, it's just garbage.

Instead of depending on the John Boehners and Mitch McConnells, we need to get smarter than they are.

We need to call their bluff and get them out of the nation's capitol.

After all, since they're only serving themselves and not the vast majority of citizens, why should these self-serving you-know-whats stay in there and waste time and money...OUR money? 

We voters get another chance on 11-4-2014.

Voting Rights Act or no Voting Rights Act, we can't afford to stay home on that Tuesday.