No One Asked Me But… (January 9, 2019)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… The Democrats are coming! The Democrats are coming!
At the state level, we will have to wait for the new legislature to meet to understand the total effect of the Democrat takeover. At the national level California Representative Nancy Pelosi is back in charge of the House of Representatives.

Speaker of the House Pelosi will have her hands full dealing with a Republican Senate and a Republican President while she tries to control her new House majority made up of, for the first time, a large number of women.

Take this column for what it is: merely an observation of a major change in the make up of the House. It is not an evaluation on the competency of women. Pelosi will have more of a problem with the fact that many of the new Democrats are from the extreme left of the party than the fact they are women.
This takeover of the House by the Democrat Party may well be just the first step in the return of America to complete Democrat control in 2020.

This has brought to my mind one of my favorite P.J. O’Rourke quotes: “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”

For the last two years, the Republican Party lived up to their part of the O’Rourke quote. Since 2016, the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency. During that time, they had the votes in both Houses of Congress to amend the Health Care Act and to build the border wall they supposedly are all so anxious to have. Further, they had a President who waited anxiously to receive and sign such legislation. However, the Republican majorities in both houses demonstrated that they could not make government work as they failed in both of these endeavors.

It is not so much a matter that government does not work; it is more so that the Republicans do not understand HOW government works. The votes that killed health care reform came not from the Democrats, for everyone knew no Democrat would vote for the repeal. The death of health care reform came from Republicans who failed to remain loyal to their party’s pledge.

The Affordable Health Care Act was passed on March 21, 2010, by a 219 – 212 vote in the House of Representatives. Not a single House Republican voted for it. There was no great effort on the part of the Democrat House majority to get bi-partisan support for the bill. They merely ramrodded it through because they understood they had the numbers to do so.

There was, however, a problem in the Senate, due to the death of Ted Kennedy. While Kennedy was alive, the Democrats had the 60 vote majority they needed to pass the Affordable Health Care Act. When Kennedy was replaced in a special election by Republican Scott Brown, the Democrats lost their two-thirds majority needed to pass the bill. I found Scott Brown’s election amazing for I didn’t know Republicans were allowed to visit Massachusetts, let alone vote there. But that is a story for another day.

The Democrats, under the leadership of Nevada’s own Harry Reid, merely voted to change over two-hundred years of procedure by negating the 2/3 majority rule and replacing it with a simple majority and the Affordable Health Care Act was passed without a single Republican vote. That my friends is understanding how to rule from a power base.

With all that being said, I am beginning to question the first part of O’Rourke’s quote. I woke up this morning to a great disappointment. I don’t believe I am any smarter, I measured myself and I am not taller, the stock market indicated I am not richer, and the crabgrass is still flourishing in my front yard. But, it has been only two days since the Democrats took over the House, and one must not be so impatient.

No one asked me but… Speaking to a crowd at an event sponsored by the progressive group MoveOn.Org, Congresswoman Rasisda Tlaib, in relating the moment she found out she had won her election to the national House of Representatives, recalled a conversation she had with her son. According to the Congresswoman’s memory the following took place when her son realized his mother had been elected to Congress.

According to the story, her son stated: “Mama look, you won. Bullies don’t win.”
Her reply was, “Baby, they don’t, because we’re gon’na go in there and we’re going to impeach the #%&#**#%.”
This being a family newspaper, I will not print the word she used in reference to the President of the United States, but if you are curious you can google Rashida Tlaib.

I don’t really believe she used that language with her son. If you look at the crowd she was addressing, it is more likely she thought she was speaking in terms her followers would appreciate. She may well have been correct as the profanity was greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm.

She had abandoned the religiously required khimar that is to cover a Muslim woman’s head when she appears in public. This may well have been a display of her independence from the requirements of her faith and an attempt to identify more closely with her supporters. Her adopting the language of a drunken sailor may well have been her attempt to show her followers that she had also abandoned the subservient role as a woman, also demanded of her by her Muslim beliefs. I would like to believe it was a statement of bravado before a crowd of supporters rather than a conversation she had with her son.

I suppose as American women are moving away from the June Cleaver image of motherhood one must adapt to the change in the persona of the American woman. However, the language Ms. Rashida chose to use is not really acceptable by male or female. As my old football coach used to tell us: “Cuss words are a crutch for a conversational cripple.”

However, I did notice he was not immune from using a curse word or two himself.

Thought of the week… When you’re mad, count four; when you’re very mad, swear! But most of us don’t wait to count four! at least I don’t!
– Mark Twain