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.
 
 

 

A simple-but-drastic solution

Well, it finally happened.

After two long years and eight long months, the United States House of Representatives has initiated an impeachment inquiry.

The last straw?

That former host of TV's The Apprentice decided that withholding $400 million in US funds, supposedly earmarked for Ukraine's defense, to get dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden would be a great idea.

This is, by no means, the only impeachable offense committed by a man who kept NBC happy from 2004 to 2015. Heck, the site https://rootsaction.org lists 23 impeachable actions as of 8-8-2019...the eve of the 45th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation from the White House, for crying out loud.

Take just Donald Trump's violation of domestic emoluments, for example.

His lease of Washington's Old Post Office Building alone would be enough to get him kicked out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...and, according to the General Services Administration, that lease is a no-no.

Speaking of Washington...at least somebody on Capitol Hill is paying some sort of attention to this country's Constitution. Somebody on Capitol Hill still cares about preserving the Constitution...and not just its Second Amendment.

It's the Democrats who control this country's House.

And it's the Democrats in the Senate.

And don't forget Congress' three independents...US Sens. Bernie Sanders (VT) and Angus King (ME) as well as US Rep. Justin Amash (MI).

This past February, House Democrats passed a bill calling for background checks on future purchasers of guns. It was one of 49 bills passed in the four months since the Donkeys regained control of the House.

The only reason we don't have background checks right now, lower prescription drug prices yet, or an infrastructure deal in place is the same reason the Equality Act and the Green New Deal aren't law yet:

Senate Republicans won't bring these bills to a vote in the upper chamber. 

They're the same Senate Republicans currently fighting tooth and nail to defend their 73-year-old meal ticket...the one who used to end every telecast of his with: "You're fired!"

The way I see it, the only way to get these bills up to the Senate and get these bills to become law is simple.

And drastic.

Some people are going to have to do it kicking and screaming...but it's got to be done if America's going to remain a constitutional republic and not the police state Mitch McConnell, Steve King, Trump, and Co. crave so much.

Here it is:

We've got to stop putting Republicans in office...and we've got to stop reelecting incumbent Elephants. 

Think about it. 

That's NOT Entertainment!

Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, and so many other pioneering television journalists would be turning over in their graves if these legends could find out just how their current legatees are handling this business of newsgathering.   

Sorry, folks, but I just don't see news as entertainment.

News is news...period.  

The way the TV arms of this country's six biggest media companies followed this month's recent national events- starting with the 2014 midterm elections- soured me on continuing to watch their offerings, be they on these companies' broadcast networks or on their cable divisions. 

That's right...no more Hardball. No more 60 Minutes. Since the cable provider I've hooked up with dropped C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2 from the provider's basic lineup, the only meat I'm going to get when I turn on my TV set will come from PBS. 

Nobody else on the tube today is performing the role of watchdog.

TV reporters working for the commercial media firms aren't asking the tough questions...questions that help viewers get better informed.  

For instance, the TV reporters (and no telling how many other journalists in other media), while watching the Nuts (oops, I mean Republicans) retake the US Senate and solidify their hold on the US House, could've asked the new lawmakers- the ones vowing to get the Affordable Care Act repealed- to disclose their own replacement(s) for this law they hate so much. (Never mind that the components of the ACA were originally cooked up by GOP minds!)

These same journalists could've asked the Democrats seeking (and unable to gain) office to explain running away from their party's post-1933 accomplishments...let alone its post-2009 achievements.  

And the voters who just got through setting foot at their neighborhood polling places could've themselves used tougher questions...especially the voters in Florida, Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (People in those four states complained bitterly about their governors- Republicans all- misusing them. But that didn't stop those same voters from reelecting all four of them to second terms.)

Too much cowardice going on on the air...and I don't want to be in on it anymore.

In the meantime, I'll continue to read newspapers...and I'll continue to get right here on this Internet and go to the online versions of those papers, as well as sites like www.factcheck.org and www.dailykos.com.   

Online, you're not as likely to run into the cowardice that's prevented correspondents from Big Media from asking John Boehner to explain not taking Steve King or Mo Brooks to task for their racist comments...or asking this country's Speaker of the House to talk about that meeting he and Mitch McConnell attended hours after Barack Obama's first inauguration. (You know, the meeting where McConnell, Boehner, and other key Republicans got together and vowed: "We're not going to work with this 'N-word!'")

And then there's the grand jury's decision in Ferguson, MO, where twelve people decided to let Darren Wilson go free. 

These last three-going-on-four months, the only outlet in which I saw any mention of the role White privilege has played in Wilson's murder of Michael Brown (it wasn't enough to take Brown to the police station) was...www.dailykos.com. 

Would a reporter from CBS or CNN still have a job after addressing White privilege in America?  

Yes, Big Media, it's been quite a ride all these years of watching the news unfold on my (or my mom's or anybody else's) TV set. Lots of history being made.

But when your reporters aren't encouraged to ask tougher questions than the ones out there, and it's all because you're more concerned about profit and about glitz than about truth, it's time for me to get off the ship.

When I watch news on TV, I don't want to be entertained.

I want to be informed.

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!!!

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