Recently Grassley noted that there wasn't room in the Judiciary Committee's agenda to confirm a new attorney general (in case President Trump got any ideas about replacing Jeff Sessions):
Everybody in D.C. Shld b warned that the agenda for the judiciary Comm is set for rest of 2017. Judges first subcabinet 2nd / AG no way
Tonight he was more direct about the new Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci:
@realDonaldTrump I'm always happy to go to WhiteHouse to discuss w u Tell Scaramucci not to use that filthy language around me he toldmedia
Grassley also found time to meet with the Gerharts, Stephenses, Hehnkes, Deikes, Haefners, Waeseskuks, Hugis, and other constituents, and to put their pictures on Instagram. He also sent good wishes to Congressman Steve Scalise recovering from gunshot wounds.
Meantime, an oldie but goodie from the file. Grassley explains a tweet from 2014 in which he cryptically said that the Dairy Queen in Windsor Heights is a good place for "u kno what."
Guy seems charming and genuine enough. What you see is what you got. Shame he's republican, though.
ReplyDeleteWell, the point is that loyal, party-line Republicans like Chuck Grassley are putting Trump on notice and drawing boundaries.
ReplyDeleteIt was very affecting to see John McCain in the Senate calling for a bipartisan effort to fix O'care. My brother in Oklahoma is a small biz owner who pays through the nose for BCBS, which is the company in his area. His wife has MS and they can't do without. There are something like a dozen states that will be in the same boat for 2018, and some counties have no carriers.
That's gonna make it hard for a lotta people to enjoy "u know what" at the Dairy Queen.
You are right, Jean. The cracks are starting to appear, there actually *are* some boundaries. What is it the child psychologists say about "moving your action line in"; the action line should have been moved in a long time ago, but better late than never.
DeleteUnfortunately, this egomaniac cannot be reined in by anybody short of impeaching him and having the secret service escort him and the Drumpf Family Singers out of the White House, hallelujah.
ReplyDeleteDid impeachment ever get rid of any president? No. The only one who left was Nixon, and it was the GOP who told him it was time to go.
DeleteWhat if Scaramucci is Trump's doppelganger? Then we get two guys mouthing off. The press cannot resist. Every other piece of news will get the air sucked out of it by these two... Just thinking!
ReplyDeleteThe two of them are like catnip to the press. But if ever there were a communications director capable of annoying and alienating the Repub fundigelical right wing Christian base, Scaramucci would be the one. Or maybe I underestimate how deeply they have drunk the koolaid.
DeleteI think Scaramucci's trash talking is deliberate and calculated. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that Trump likes having "healthy competition" among staff. In other words, the WH is a snake pit full of people out to do each other in to show how strong they are. I used to work for a high functioning alcoholic who operated like this. He would pit people against each other in meetings and fire the loser. It was entertainmemt for him. My sense is that this is Trump's m.o., and he's so high on keeping the dog fight going that he has no time to understand things like healthmcare and the boy scouts.
DeleteWhat Mike Pence will do with someone like Scaramucci as the admin's mouthpiece will be interesting to see.
But let's be realistic - the only reason guys like Grassley seem to be standing up to Trump is because he is threatening one of their own, Sessions, and because Repubs have traditionally been anti-Russia. Meanwhile Grassley was happy to vote for the awful health care bill and stand up for all the other awful Republican garbage.
ReplyDeleteI agree Sessions is a catalyst, but Scaramucci is going to alienate a lot of Repubs who live in Right-wing Christian areas, as Grassley does.
DeleteOnce GOPs see Trump as a liability to their constituent base, they will drop him. And, as many pundits have pointed out, Trump has no real clout to throw around and scare them with. He has no real bloc of supporters in the Senate.
Paul Krugman was not quite so sanguine about the actions of the Republican "moderates": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/opinion/columnists/trumpcare-republican-moderates.html?_r=0
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ReplyDeleteYes, everything the Republicans have done, from accepting Trump as their candidate to now defending Sessions from him, is based on self-interest. There's not a single idealist among them. I doubt there are any true Christians among them either, given that they belong to a party that has screwing over poor people as a plank in its platform.
ReplyDeleteAbout whether there are any true Christians among them, living smack in the middle of a red state, as I do, most of the people I know are Republicans. And I know a lot of good, kind people. Who apparently live with a lot of cognitive dissonance. Partly it is a tribal thing. And many of them sincerely believe that a small government is better, and that truly free markets regulate themselves. And it is a reaction against globalism, and what they consider to be too fast social change. I don't think anything is gained by placing people outside the moral pale. Even though as pretty much a political agnostic these days, I disagree with much of that world view.
DeleteI have relatives like this too. But one of the things Jesus advises is helping the poor, but the Republican party and Republicans I've met have no compassion for the poor and the last thing they want is for the government to help the poor with their tax dollars.
DeleteThe Republican ladies in the town where I teach have opened the Congregational, Methodist, and Lutheran church halls every night in the winter to keep people from freezing to death. They are getting people jobs and into permanent housing. They pay for daycare. They put out calls for everything from bicycles to bedsheets.
DeleteThey have a different way of looking at service to the poor, which is personal and involved. I am happy to help them.
I do differ with them about taxes and safety nets. I have pointed out that you can't have enough spaghetti suppers to pay for a kid's chemo.
But I can't say they are not doing Jesus's work.
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ReplyDeleteCharity is good, but there is a difference between charity and justice. Charity is dependent on the whim of the giver. The money and services the government gives to the poor and the disabled is not charity, it is the price we all pay to live in a society that has decided it will leave no one behind and that recognizes that hardship can fall upon anyone.
ReplyDeleteConservatives want to slash entitlements and make needy people dependent again on charity. Charity is nice but I think people who are needy would prefer to have rights and services guaranteed by law from the government.
Some years ago in the UK there was an effort by religious conservatives and the conservative government (Cameron) to cut services to the needy and have religions, especially Catholicism, take up the slack through charity. They called it the Big Society and guys like John Milbank and Phillip Blond wrote stuff promoting it. America magazine had posts about it like this one ... What connects Cameron to Italian Catholics
I think this is what many Republicans would like to see - services to the poor like Meals on Wheels and Medicaid done away with and instead make these people dependent again on religious charity.
Good point about the difference between justice and charity. I think it was Pope Paul VI who said, "If you want peace, work for justice."
DeleteI believe there is some magical thinking involved with the idea that churches and charities can pick up the safety net slack. The numbers don't even begin to add up.
Of course not. The reason we have government help is because churches could/would not pick up the slack. I simply draw the line at saying Republicans are not following Jesus. None of us is following Jesus perfectly.
DeleteIf people want government services replaced by religious charity, then some economist needs to figure out what burden that would entail for the religious believers. It would be beyond tithing and throwing a kwatloo or two in the second collection. And spaghetti dinners, too.
ReplyDeleteJesus Christ! And that's a prayer! Nobody ever accused me of being Little Mary Sunshine. But the Republican ladies I work with offer a kind of personal care for people that a government program doesn't. And in working for the poor, many of them have gained more empathy. Isn't there room for both charity and government help?
ReplyDeleteYes, charity is good, of course. But we don't live in the kind of society where charity is enough. It's not just that charity doesn't have the means to help everyone who needs it, it is that there's a whole different way of looking at needy people between charity and government entitlements.
ReplyDeleteCharity is a voluntary benevolent gift from those who have stuff to those who don't deserve stuff because they didn't earn it. But government programs are not gifts, they are benefits earned simply by being a citizen, a person, in the same way that some people think health care is a right for everyone.
That difference in the way people see the needy is exemplified by the two political parties - Republicans don't believe needy people deserve stuff that they haven't earned by the sweat of their brows (or inherited like Trump). Yes, out of the kindness of their hearts and because their religion seems to demand it, Republicans may give these people the gift of charity, but some of them seem to think "the poor will always be with us" so there's no need to change things for the better.
Someone at the Tablet wrote an article that explains it better than me. I can't find it anymore, but here is the beginning of it ...
"Without justice, charity is undermined" - Abigail Frymann
"There comes a time when you have to stop pulling bodies out of the water and go upriver and find out who or what is pushing them in.
Not the most pleasant image, perhaps, but one used by charities as a justification of spending supporters' money on advocacy work rather than just aid.
There is a movement in parts of the Catholic Church at the moment to focus more on its charity (Caritas) work and less on its justice and peace (advocacy) work. One example of this, as we report this week, is in the diocese of Shrewsbury, where the local bishop is making made the Justice and Peace co-ordinator redundant.
Critics of justice and peace work say that it is too political, too secular. After all, you don't need to be a professing Christian to wave a placard or go on about the rainforests. And many Christians (bar Revd Giles Fraser) stayed away from the Occupy movement.
But there is something inherently biblical about calling for justice and peace ...."