#984: A Movement Or Just a Moment?

At the outset, let me make one thing robustly clear: that despite the fact Speaker Mike Johnson successfully managed to get the House to pass 4 crucial bills - aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, plus a TikTok ban and Iranian sanctions - our political differences are wider than the Grand Canyon and deeper than the Mariana Trench. Simply stated, we view reality through radically different eyes. Nonetheless, I doff my cap to him and applaud the political courage it took to do the right thing. Indeed, in addressing the press just after the bills passed said, most simply, that “History will judge it well.”  I couldn’t agree with him more.  I can’t remember the last time I heard a House Republican use the word “history” in referencing their mission or motivation. 

Three cheers must also go to Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies.  Those who understand how Congress truly works – on those rare occasions when it does - know that the most important measures cannot be enacted without a lot of closed-door interaction between both party’s leadership teams.  In comparison to Speaker Johnson’s task this past Saturday, Leader Jeffries’ was, relatively speaking, far easier.  Although 33 of the 99 progressive Democrats wound up voting against aid to Israel, Jeffries knew that the rest of his caucus would vote in its favor . . . and that virtually the entire Democratic Caucus (210 in number) would vote “yay” on aid to Ukraine and Taiwan.  Not so Speaker Johnson: he heads up (it’s hard to say “leads”) a caucus in which an unwieldy minority is as contentious and hide-bound as a congregation of contrarians. And. mind you, most of these naysayers and bomb-throwers are the living embodiment of what another murderous Vladimir (Lenin) termed “useful idiots.”  As things turned out, 44 of 48 members of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” (a.k.a. the “Clown Car Caucus) wound up voting against aid to Ukraine.  

BTW: It should be noted that the Republicans - both “Institutionalists” and “Freedom Caucus” members voted overwhelmingly (193-18) for aid to Israel, 182-16 for aid to Taiwan, and 186-21 for the TikTok ban/sanctions for Iran.  All in all, a very good day; indeed, likely the most memorable of the 118th Congress.

So why the swift change in Speaker Johnson’s political weltanschauung?  He certainly wasn’t pushing aid to Ukraine in order to buttress his position as Speaker;  truth to tell, by working with Leader Jeffries and the Democrats he merely increased the bile stuck in the throats of Reps. Gosar (R-AZ), Thomas Masssie (R-KY) and their leader, the mouth that roars, Rep. Marjorie Taylor (“Moscow Marge”) Greene of Georgia.  The three have publicly  threatened that if Johnson won’t resign his position, they will do everything in their power to remove him from office . . . ala Kevin McCarthy. Greene’s kvetchiest kvetch is that by leading the charge for funding the Ukrainians, Speaker Johnson has in one fell swoop become both a RINO (“Republican in Name Only”) and a fire-breathing liberal. From statements he has made, Johnson doesn’t seem overly concerned about being ousted.  Could this mean he has already received assurances from Minority Leader Jeffries that should the tyrannical triad try to give  him, Johnson, the heave-ho, that the Democrats will provide enough votes to keep him in as leader of the House?  No one knows for sure; this isn’t the kind of thing to be bandied about in public . . . But then too, when even Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post fails to side with Rep. Greene, it is a plausible sign that something’s afoot. 

Isn’t this the same Mike Johnson who just a little more than a week ago made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to shore up support from Donald of Orange?” Yes it is, without question.  But perhaps the Speaker is a better chess player than the former POTUS.  In dividing the bill passed by the Senate into four separate measures, Johnson was essentially laying the groundwork for passing all four.  And it worked . . . along with a lot of help from Jeffries and the Democrats.  Now it is on to the Senate, where it will be quickly passed (over the dead body of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance) and then hustled over to the White House where it will sit on the Resolute Desk (also known as the “Hayes Desk”) for just  a minute or two before it is signed into law by President Joseph Biden.  Score one for Speaker Johnson; score one for President Biden; score one for the 118th Congress; and above all, score one for American prestige in the eyes of our allies.  

Am I the only one who has yet to hear a peep from our former Commander-in-Chief?  I keep waiting for him to say that in  his heart of hearts he really, truly favored funding the Ukrainians in their war against Putin.  As implausible as that may seem,  remember this: the man is a world-class liar.  In truth, he hasn’t uttered a word.  It brings to mind one of best Sherlock Holmes stories, “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” In it, Holmes solves the theft of a prize racehorse by focusing on what didn’t happen rather than what did. In so doing, Holmes (or more precisely, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) gave us the phrase “the dog that didn’t bark.”   In the case of Donald Trump, don’t wait for the bark . . . he’s too busy glowering at all  the  witnesses and evidence against him in a Manhattan courthouse.

As much as I may pray that yesterday’s triumph in the House was the beginning of a movement, I know in my heart-of-hearts that it is a moment . . . a good one, to be sure.  And as much as I applaud Speaker Johnson for his strength and courage, I know that come next week, he will still be, at base, an ultra-conservative Christian Nationalist who fully supports a national ban on abortion; a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the Second Amendment who cannot bring himself  to deny anyone’s right to stockpile their own assault weapons and nuclear devices; who wishes to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to balance the federal budget.  Let’s face facts: a predator  isn’t likely to change its markings.  Nonetheless, I will never cease praying that the carnivores, once they have stepped back from their predatory ways for even a moment, will see the “humanity” of the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the deep blue sea.

     To all of my fellow "Members of the Tribe,” I wish you and yours a kosher un a ziss’n Pesach.    

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#940 Much Ado About Something #🟦

   Beatrice & Benedict:  “Much Ado About Nothing”

Without question, the past several weeks have put political brinksmanship (e.g. Politics as Chess) at center stage more than at any time in the past several decades. On one side: Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, whose hold upon his ceremonial gavel is as mercurial as a rock climber scaling El Capitan, while his fingers are bedaubed with olive oil; on the other, the nation’s 46th President, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., the apostle of bipartisanship, whose half-century political career is nearly unmatched in all American history. At stake: whether or not the United States would, for the first time in history, be unable to meet its fiscal obligations.

Without question, McCarthy faced the longest odds in the negotiation; he is saddled with a substantial faction of what used to be referred in political circles to as “bomb-throwers.” These neo fascisti - people like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gaetz, George Santos, James Comer and Jim Jordan - never tried to hide the fact that they cared not a wit whether or not the U.S. defaulted on its financial obligations. Their admitted aim was to “hold the nation’s economy hostage,” and blame it all on Biden and the Democrats in order to be a leg up in the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, President Biden - the so-called “adult in the room” - who made it known even before the first day of negotiations - that “the issue of raising America’s debt ceiling has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with lowering the nation’s deficit,” and reminded the nation that Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling three - count ‘em THREE - times during the Trump years.

As things turned out, the bipartisan agreement reached by the president and Speaker McCarthy - with the mature, yet rather low-key assent of Senate Majority Leader Schumer and his minority partner, Senator McConnell - passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress: 63-36 in the Senate and 314-117 in the House. Most telling, the vast majority of House Committee Chairs (who obviously would never have received their gavels unless they supported McCarthy from day 1) voted IN FAVOR of its passage. Whether or not they held their nose as they cast their AYE votes is not known . . . and really not all that important. What DID and DOES matter is that the son-of-a-gun passed. (It is interesting to note that Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert was one of two Republicans who did not cast a vote. When queried as to why she missed the vote, she said that it was a no-show protest vote.” Several days later, a video surfaced showing Boebert running up the Capitol steps while the vote was already in progress. When informed that the vote was closed, she continued running up the steps.)

On the Senate side - and quite predictably - the entire Republican “brain trust” (McConnell and his leadership team) voted in favor of its passage, while those who make the most noise (Senators Cotton, Cruz, Graham, Hawley, Johnson, Rubio and the two Scotts (Rick and Tom), Tuberville and Vance), like trained seals, followed their vaunted leader and voted NAY. (I am of course referring to the FPOTUS who commanded his true believers to let the U.S. default before agreeing to a compromise on government spending cuts.)

On the part of the Democrats, there were members of both houses who voted against passage of the bill; once they knew that it would succeed without their votes. Most made it perfectly clear why they were voting against the bill, referring to the specific add-ons. pork and budget cuts they were against. In no case did any Democrat voice anything but utter scorn over the idea of the nation defaulting on its fiscal obligations. Most voiced muted contempt for their colleagues on the other side of the aisle from attempting to tie a raise in the Debt Ceiling with budget negotiations.

I was always taught that the definition of a bipartisan bill is one which both houses pass and is then signed into law by POTUS. However, it is one which again, by definition, neither side loves, but both sides will have to live with . . . and live to fight out another day. Without question, the minutia found in the 99-page Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (its official name) contains many things which are odious to different factions. For some it neither contains enough of an increase in military spending nor cuts the nation’s deficit by nearly enough; for others it stinks because it permits an oil pipeline to wend its way through Virginia, puts student loan repayments back on the monthly list of bills to be paid, and restores a work requirement for older people receiving government assistance . . . and dozens of other things. In short, the Fiscal Responsibility Act is a classic case of bipartisan legislation: something for most and nothing for all.

So who won and who lost this political chess match? To tell the truth (something increasingly rare in this era of raging mendacity), neither side . . . nor both sides . . . depending on how one looks at it. So far as actual deficit reduction goes, the bill won’t cure what ails us: a mere $1.5 trillion worth of debt over the next ten years will be removed. That works out to an average of $150 billion per year. I mean, Hell’s bells!; together, Elon Musk and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos are worth a lot more than that. And so far as radically cutting the federal budget, forget it; the Republicans, as an example, wanted to eliminate the $80 billion earmarked for adding tens of thousands of new IRS agents (whose job it would be to ferret out the dishonesty of the hyper-wealthy). It was cut by a mere 8.75% (from $80 to $70 billion). Spending on Social Security and Medicare were held in check (Hallelujah!) and the dismemberment of several executive departments was ignored. And yet, Joe Biden left just enough within the final bill to give Speaker McCarthy and his team of Republicans enough to campaign on back home in 2024.

Biden and his team played McCarthy like a Stradivarius. So much so that in a moment of weakness, the Speaker, untested and inexperienced in high-stakes negotiations, actually said a few positive thing about the president, which could get him in Dutch with his party’s biggest blowhards who want the public that to know that President Biden is senile, the most corrupt president of all time, and hasn’t got the slightest idea about what’s going on. Instead, in his remarks to the press, Speaker McCarthy said: “And I do want to thank the president’s team that he put together. Very professional, very smart and very tough. Very strong beliefs that are different than ours. And I think at the end of the day people can look together to be able to sign it in the House and the Senate.” For many Republicans this is sheer heresy and just might get McCarthy thrown out of office. (Remember, it takes only one member of the House Republican Caucus to put McCarthy’s head and gavel on the chopping block.)

From where I sit, McCarthy and his staff were simply outplayed and out-strategized by Biden and his team. Biden started out by staunchly proclaiming that he would never link raising the Debt Ceiling to considering anything budgetary . . . like cutting or eliminating social safety-net spending in future budgets. McCarthy and his gang assumed that they would be able to out-maneuver Biden and his crew to back down, unless they wanted to be universally blamed for the economic catastrophe their political stolidity would wreak. What McCarthy et al never understood was that they were being set up by a political chess master; one who eventually granted them a few budgetary crumbs in order to let them save a bit of face while all the while saving both America and the world from certain economic catastrophe.

Of course, there was a winner in all this: the American (and thus, the global) economy . . . at least for now.  It’s truly remarkable how much time, tension, and strategizing went in to completing this match.  What’s even more remarkable, perhaps, is how little (outside of taking debt ceiling talks off the table for the next 2 years) was truly gained.  One could sarcastically name this episode Much Ado About Nothing, the title of a Shakespearean comedy first performed in 1612.  While certainly not his best comedy (to my thinking it would be a tie between Twelfth Night and A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream), it is nonetheless most satisfying.  In a nutshell, Much Ado is based upon deliberate lies and deceptions to fool someone to believe something that is not true.  Sound familiar? 

In the play, which is set in Messina, Count Claudio falls in love with Hero, the daughter of his Sicilian host. Hero's cousin Beatrice (a confirmed spinster) and Benedict (an eternal bachelor) are each duped into believing the other is in love with them. Claudio is deceived by a malicious plot and denounces Hero as unchaste before they marry.  When you boil things down, all the falderol leads the principal participants no further than where they started.  Sounds quite reminiscent of the recent chess match between Biden and McCarthy.

Except for one thing: Shakespeare’s comedy is a commentary on the silliness of human nature and human mating rituals. While serious things do happen during the play, ultimately everything is cleared up and the couples end up happy together. But in the end, what happens to the two couples means next to nothing.  In our current situation, the much ado, while certainly putting the silliness of human nature on display, ends up with something which should always have happened, actually happening . . . keeping the U.S.’s  economic trustworthiness alive and well. When the history of this match is written, perhaps some future wit will give it its proper title:

Much Ado About Something.  

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone      # 🟦