I Apologize To Tim Ryan

Back in February, I called former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan a fraud for joining a natural-gas lobbying group and promoting natural gas as a "bridge" to clean, renewable energy.  Well, that was an overreaction to what I thought at the time was a dumb career move, and I am apologizing for that comment.  The truth is, natural gas is a transitional energy source in switching toward renewables, as it's the cleanest-burning fossil fuel there is.  And though that's like being the best ice hockey player in Borneo, the truth is that we're not going to switch to renewables overnight - and if the Republicans take over Washington in 2025 we won't switch to renewables at all.  And that's probably why Ryan, who obviously gets the latter part of the truth as much as the former part, has formed a new organization to prevent that situation.

Ryan announced a new organization in July called We the People, an organization aimed at reaching out toward the exhausted majority that rejects both the bigotry and misanthropy of the Republicans and the political correctness and cultural relativism of Democrats.   He wants to focus on issues such as reviving American manufacturing, energy, health care, and similar kitchen-table topics and offer a showcase for examples of how local issues are successfully dealt with at the grass-roots level.  He wants to highlight solutions to problems that people are implementing locally, outside Washington, to rebuild our political system form the ground up in a bipartisan matter.    

"There is an exhausted majority in the country, and they feel like they don't have any political home at all," Ryan told CBS News this past summer.  "That's maddening because that gives a bigger voice to those forces of division and hate and anger, so we want to build an organization that welcomes these people to participate."

Ryan also wants to build a strong coalition of people within his organization to reject the growing MAGA movement and its hostility toward democratic principles.

"We will also take a strong and hostile position against these forces of hate and anger and fear and division in the country," he explained. "That's the only way for us, in my estimation, for us to allow all of this greatness happening in the country to be able to bloom and to grow."  (Calling his group We the People is pretty savvy, since MAGA Republicans have stolen the first three words of the Constitution's preamble to amplify their own cause.  Ryan is stealing it back.)

Ryan has not ruled out another run for public office, though many Democrats have likely ruled it out for him, since he's a three-time loser - a failed candidate for House Democratic leader against Nancy Pelosi, a failed presidential candidate in 2019 (he didn't make it to 2020) and, despite positive reviews for his campaign, a failed U.S. Senate campaign against Republican James David Vance.  (If positive reviews determined success, art-house films would draw bigger audiences than blockbuster movies based on cartoon characters like James David Vance.)  Also, Democrats never liked Ryan much because he was  not liberal enough for them and too quick to challenge leaders like Pelosi.  Also, he's a white guy from Ohio.  In case you haven't noticed, there isn't a single white man among the top three members of the House Democratic leadership, so even if ol' Tim had decided to stay in the House and pursue a leadership role, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

I'm sure Ryan must be bummed that he stepped on too many toes as a House member and doomed any chance he might have had to become Speaker, but at least he won't be kicking himself while seeing an Ohioan far worse than even Vance get that coveted spot - Jim Jordan was forced to give up his bid for it after three failed votes.  In the meantime, Ryan is focused on helping to get people turned off by politics involved in the political mainstream to make sure that good guys like Sherrod Brown (Ohio's Democratic U.S. Senator) win in 2024 and bad guys like all of the Republicans who are part of the MAGA movement (i.e., most of them) do not.  And then maybe he'll be in better shape by 2028 - when Vance will be up for re-election. 😉   

But if Ryan runs for the U.S. Senate again in 2028, the Ohio Democratic Party will probably still be moribund.

Drowning In the River Jordan

The vote to choose a Speaker of the House this past Tuesday went as expected. with Jordan failing to get a majority of the vote  after twenty House Republicans voted for someone else.  Democratic candidate Hakeem Jeffries actually lost two more votes on top of the twenty he'd lost on Tuesday when a second ballot was held yesterday.

There will be a third ballot later today, but whether or not the third time will be the charm for Jordan is anyone's guess.  And the country's pressing concern.  The last thing we need is a guy privy to a sex abuse scandal who also aided an insurrection two places away from the Presidency and running the House of Representatives. 

Democrats are quietly gloating over the Republican dysfunction going on right now, but they'd better not gloat too soon.  Mainly because Trump is still scaring Biden in the polls.  And despite Republican dysfunction and disunion in 2015 and 2016, this is the cover of Time magazine that greeted Democrats in early 2017.

Ya dig?

While You Were Watching CNN

With so much attention focused on Israel and on Jordan (not the country, the jerk from Ohio), CNN (and other TV news outlets too, in fat) have ignored just about everything else going on in the world.  Here's a brief rundown of things that have happened in the past week or so:

• The Nobel Economics Prize was awarded to American economist Claudia Goldin, citing her "for having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes."
• The conservative National Party of New Zealand, led by Christopher Luxon, won the most seats in the New Zealand general parliamentary election.  A coalition government with the far-right NZ First Party is likely.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin (below) claimed that Ukrainian losses in its counteroffensive against the invading Russian army have been devastating.  Kyiv denies this.  Russia has also launched a new offensive in eastern Ukraine. 

• Federal judge Tanya Chutkan issued a gag order against Donald Trump in his insurrection trial, saying that Trump "does not have the right to say and do exactly what he pleases," adding, "This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice." 
• Fashion model turned journalist Gail O'Neill died unexpectedly last Tuesday (October 10) at the age of 61. 
• "Three's Company"star Suzanne Somers, who broke through as an actress fifty years ago in American Graffiti as "the blonde in the Thunderbird," died this past Sunday on the eve of her 77th birthday of breast cancer. 
• The Supreme Court of India declined to legalize same-sex marriage in that country. 
• The Philadelphia Eagles, the last undefeated team in the NFL's 2023-24 season, lost to the New York Jets, 20-14.

By the time you read this, a Speaker of the House may have been elected. Or not. But that's for another post.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Representative Jim Jordan (MAGA-Ohio) is a turd with arms and legs.  He is trying to impeach President Biden for no apparent reason.  He stands against everything and for nothing.  As an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University back in the late eighties and early nineties, he did nothing to stop sexual abuse going on in the wrestling program despite firsthand knowledge of it.  He wants a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, opposes legal abortion, and once said the quiet part out loud about why he and other Republicans oppose high-speed passenger rail (which we're never getting anyway, so it doesn't matter and what if it did?) - because it discourages new-car sales.  He is, in a word, the very sort of fellow who reminds people all over the world why they despise white male Americans so much.  

And yet, he's likely to be Speaker of the House by week's end. 

Jordan (shown here in a rare portrait if him with his suit coat on) is running to be the Republican nominee for Speaker of the House, the third highest and second most powerful elective office in the country, with House Republican leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana his only real competition.   Jordan, as Speaker, would likely push not only his reactionary policy positions on the House but also add extra win dinthe sails of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, making the possibility of Trump's return to power more of a likelihood.  Also, he opposes military funding for Ukraine, Scalise is a tad less extreme - but only a tad - and he is on board with Senate Republicans in supporting Ukraine's war against the invading Russians.  But deciding who you'd rather have as Speaker of the House - Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan - is sort of like deciding whether to see Battlefield Earth or Glitter for a movie night at home. 

Democrats, of course, have to nominate a candidate for Speaker as well, and some of them have suggested forming a coalition with anti-Trump Republicans to get behind a consensus Republican candidate - former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, for example - in an effort to block Jordan.  (You don't have to be a current or even former member of the House to Speaker; anyone can be chosen for the job.)   So the likeliest scenario will be for the Democrats to nominate their House leader, Hakeem Jeffries, an urge anti-Trump Republicans to put country over party and help Jeffries win the speakership.

Right.  Republicans - even so-called "moderates" outside the MAGA faction - voting for a black guy from Brooklyn who grew up on hip-hop.  Sure.  And, Republicans will inevitably say, isn't his Uncle Leonard a pan-Africanist who insists that the deep reservoir of melanin in the skin of Negroes makes them intellectually, morally, and culturally superior to Caucasians?   

Looking at the House Republican caucus of late, there may actually be something to that theory.    

No Holds Barred

Attorney General William Barr (below) testified before the House Judiciary Committee this past Tuesday, and I'll give him this much - despite fears to the contrary, he showed up.

But as to the question of whether the Democrats or Barr and his fellow Republicans made the case for Barr's heavy-handed response to people demonstrating against racial injustice,  his recommendation against a seven-to-nine year jail sentence for Roger Stone, or the Russia probe investigation, I fear that Barr and his congressional allies may have made the better arguments - mainly by lying and obfuscating at loud volumes and with righteous indignation.  Barr defended his recommendation on Stone's prison sentence, citing his age, and he maintained that force from the civilian government agents in Portland was necessary to protect the courthouse from the more violent elements of the demonstrations, whose rights to free speech he supported so long as they were peaceful.  And GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee backed him up with their spins on the issues, as well as displaying  eager anticipation of the report on the Russia probe investigation. 

The Democrats landed some effective punches, such as Representative Jerrold Nadler (NY) citing the mothers, veterans and public officials that make up many of the peaceful demonstrators against racial injustice, as well as Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (TX) going after Barr for not hiring any black aides while trying to sound sanctimonious in invoking the recently deceased John Lewis (still lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda during the hearing).  Democratic Representative Joe Neguse (CO) even got Barr to suggest that former New York District Attorney Geoffrey Berman resigned without knowing it, a preposterous idea.  But Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) and his opening salvo in the form of an eight-minute montage video that contrasted TV news reporters and commentators talking about "peaceful demonstrators" with scenes of violent confrontations seemed to overshadow all that.  And why not?  It had more noise and chaos than another famous eight-minute montage, "Revolution 9."

Take this, brother, may it serve you well.

Democratic Representative David Cicilline (RI) countered Jordan's video montage with one of his own, showing still pictures from the same demonstrations featuring peaceful protesters.  Too bad one of those still pictures - which aren't as effective as videos - showed one demonstrator holding up a sing with an obscenity on it.

It was left to CNN's Jake Tapper to point out that Jordan had marshaled and edited clips for his video selectively without offering the comments from reporters and commentators about peaceful demonstrators in their proper context, with Tapper showed the original news clips to illustrate that these reporters and commentators, some of whom were Tapper's coworkers, were saying that the demonstrations mostly peaceful but turned violent when provoked by federal agents.  Yes, but how many people are going to pay attention to Jake Tapper? Jordan's' tactic was slimy propaganda but smart politics.

Hopefully, a few days or so will shed more light on how evasive and arrogant Barr and his Republican defenders were and make them look more preposterous than they already do.  But for Trump supporters - still comprising two-fifths of the electorate, making them a dangerous, large minority - evasion and arrogance are badges of honor. 

Cain and Jordan

News flash: Herman Cain is still a presidential candidate.

Yes, the former pizzeria chain CEO stopped his campaign over charges of an extramarital affair, but if you listened closely he said he was "suspending" his campaign. Suspending your campaign means you've temporarily halted your run for office so you figure out how or whether to go forward. Ending your campaign is withdrawing from the campaign and not going forward at all. Gary Hart, when he was faced with charges of an extramarital affair as his campaign for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination was gearing up in May 1987, suspended his run for the White House on May 7; he then ended his campaign on May 8. (He did re-enter the race seven months later, but that's a different issue.)

So Cain is still assessing his viability as a presidential candidate. The joke is that everyone else has assessed it for him.

Meanwhile, Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and a leading rightie, expressed pleasure with the fact that President Obama opposes any attempt to attach a rider authorizing an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas on a payroll tax cut extension bill.

"Frankly, Jordan said, "the fact that the president doesn't like it makes me like it even more."

Miracle of miracles! A Republican comes clean! He admits that he supports a bad idea just because the President opposes it!

Jordan is no stranger to expressing his opposition to policies without a lot of rationalized B.S. He also opposes high-speed rail, and remember, he came right out and said it was because he didn't want to see intercity passenger rail to compete with the business of selling cars - not because of wasteful government spending or any crap like that.

So we have one Republican who can't not be a candidate and another who can't not tell the truth. Yeah, those are double negatives. So are Cain and Jordan.