TOWN HALL TERROR – How Congressional Republicans Are Dodging Accountability For the Indefensible

During the current congressional recess, legislators have once again headed back to their home districts. Great time to interact with their constituents, right?

Well…this year not so much.

Here in Minnesota, as around the rest of this great, democratic country, Congresspeople—or should I say Republican Congresspeople—are taking their lead from the trump administration, doing anything they can to avoid hearing how people really feel about the disastrous state of our political leadership.

I suppose some credit’s due our U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer for actually showing up at his town hall meeting—though he did feel he had to warn citizens that if they got out of hand he would simply leave. Still, he needn’t have worried that much since they chose a hall seating just 75 people. And no worries about the other 1,000 attendees acting up either; they all had to stand outside.

Newly-elected GOP Rep. Jason Lewis was too scared to appear in person at his gathering with constituents. He conducted his “town hall” by telephone, if you can believe it.

And then there’s GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen. He didn’t even attempt to listen on the telephone to the folks who elected him. Even his spokesperson kept his distance, issuing a prepared statement excusing his boss because of his “long history of meeting with people in his district.” How about this time, Erik?

  Funny, I thought it was the elected 
  public servant who’s supposed to 
  listen.

LIKE THE PLAGUE
Elsewhere, those Congresspeople with the stomach for it faced pointed criticism about everything from the aimless threats to the Affordable Care Act, to gutless, mostly-ineffective immigration policy, to sweeping Trump administration conflicts of interest and collusion with Russia.

But, again, there were plenty who simply turned and ran, in one way or another, from their fundamental obligation to listen to the folks back home.

In Utah, GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz went on the offensive, accusing people at his town hall of “bullying and an attempt at intimidation,” and claiming those who questioned him “included people brought in from other states to disrupt the meeting.”

After his raucous town hall, Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy lamented  that “unfortunately, people came in with their prejudices, and with their prejudice, they would not listen.” Funny, I thought it was the elected public servant who’s supposed to listen.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) may just have taken the cake, though. Defending his decision not to meet his constituents in person, he cited “the threat of violence,” referring specifically to the 2011 shooting that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six others.

 A true conservative vision of American 
 Values…has been hijacked by a very 
 few men who have very little worth  
 beyond that they place on themselves.

LIFE OF THE PARTY
And so it went across the country. Little wonder, I suppose, for a party whose crass new leader, predictably, went into knee-jerk tweets of denial. “They fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there, but they’re not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.”

This is what the party that, not so many years ago, could have proudly been called the party of Lincoln, has come to. The party built on generations of thoughtful policy-making, respectful communication, civic engagement, and frequent cooperation across the aisle has, in just a few short years, been squandered by a handful of self-serving, desperately insecure, soulless authoritarians who believe the time-honored values of the United States of America no longer serve their interests.                                                                                                                                                   I hope they—and we—will keep it up.

A true conservative vision of those values, the kind that has motivated men and women who actually stood for something instead of against everything—like Teddy Roosevelt,  Dwight Eisenhower or, more recently, Bob Dole, Olympia Snowe or even Mitt Romney—has been hijacked by a very, very few men who, as leaders, have very, very little worth beyond that they place on themselves. And who believe this nation owes them even more wealth than they’ve already managed to extract from its store of human and natural resources.

And, instead of standing up to the outrage, weak-kneed politicians across the country have chosen this perverted version of party over principle. That’s what all these angry Americans are expressing at the town hall forums across the country. Now, whether the representatives they elected—and who are supposed to be working for them—ever come out of hiding or not, I hope they—and we—will keep it up.

             

HISSY FIT – How the Trump Chumps Got Their Way While Losing It

Since a crass, bigoted reality-TV star somehow, incredibly, broke and entered the pantheon of the U.S. Presidency, I’ve not hesitated to speak up about my disappointment, my apprehension and my deep embarrassment for our country.

Usually, I get ample proof from my friends and followers that I’m preaching’ to the choir. But lately I’ve also received a few of precisely the kind of responses I might have expected from some of Trump’s supporters. Comments like “You lost; get over it!,” “I’m sick and tired of all you cry-babies bitching and moaning!,” and “It’s your turn to be a loser, college boy; why don’t you just man-up?” And those are the polite ones.

Really! We’re the cry-babies?

AN INVISIBLE HOLE
So…a big chunk (not a majority, mind you) of the American electorate apparently has perceived themselves as oppressed, muzzled, getting short-changed in their share of the American Dream. This despite ample proof that, overall, the quality of life in this country has never, ever, been better.

After the Obama administration’s helped dig us out of the deep hole dug during the “Dubya” years, we now enjoy the best job growth in 18 yrs.; strongest dollar in three decades; gas a bit over $2 per gallon; unemployment cut in half; the annual Bush deficit cut by two-thirds; recovered housing market; growing exports; Dow Jones average tripled and surging once again…

What am I missing?

        What they'd really lost...was their ability to control.

They say they’d lost their voice, their power. And even some more charitable liberals than I believe them. But I’m going to call them on it. What they’d really lost during those eight hard-fought years of progressives’ gains was not the American dream. It was their ability to control.

And it was not simply control over themselves and their own fortunes they so lusted for. It was authority—control over land, people not like them, other countries, ideas they see as threatening to their rather narrow quasi-religious ideology. That’s what this election was really about.

LILY-WHITE CLONES
For the last eight years, while we progressives have been thinking positively, constructively, of ways to make the world a better place—connecting people; creating opportunity; trying, against the best-funded, most powerful lobbying efforts in history, to preserve a natural environment we’re proud to pass on to our kids and grandkids—conservative ideologues have put all their eggs into one big basket of NO!

          He held out a few cheap promises like a candy bar 
          to a health nut's child. 

By their own admission, their one and only goal during the eight-year administration of one of the most intelligent, visionary, positive-minded, decent presidents in history has been to derail absolutely anything he’s proposed. Not exert their own version of leadership, not offer constructive alternatives, not paint a picture of a better America; no, just stifle every glimmer of hope for a kinder, gentler nation.

What is it you want, folks? Federal hands off of public lands so you can gouge out more mineral wealth on the cheap, wallow in more ATV mud holes and build more rifle ranges? A sub-prime mortgage on the environment we leave our grandchildren in return for a few jobs in unsustainable industries? Your own little nation of God-fearin,’ lily-white clones?

THE PRICE OF A CANDY BAR
Well, looks like your political temper tantrum has, against all odds, gotten you the attention you so craved. And now the rest of us must live, for at least the next four years, with the consequences: a president who—at precisely the moment in history when we most need a leader with a constructive vision—has already proven himself an utterly ill-prepared, emotionally unstable, uncurious, vulgar, pompous, self-serving narcissist.

And none of this charlatan’s destruction should come as any surprise to those who ganged up—apparently with a little help from one of our nation’s arch enemies—to push him into office. He held out a few cheap promises like a candy bar to a health nut’s child. And you totally reached out and grabbed it.

Congratulations, you poor, self-styled victims, your little hissy fit worked big-time. You little brats set the house afire over a fucking Milky Way.

“We the people chose a man who has shredded our values, our morals, our compassion, our tolerance, our decency, our sense of common purpose, our very identity — all the things that, however tenuously, made a nation out of a country.”  ~ NEAL GABLER