The Stamping of Tiny Feet

We all saw #GavelSlam, and I at least respect rage. But Patrick McHenry's pique went petty and dark very quickly. As soon as he got back to his new office, flanked by his new security detail, McHenry sent the message to Nancy Pelosi, who's currently attending Dianne Feinstein's funeral and wasn't even in the Capitol for the ousting of McCarthy -- that she was being kicked out of her hideaway office in the Capitol. "You got less than 24 hours to get the hell out." Words to that effect (see the news tweet below). (Incidentally, many senior members of Congress have small offices in the Capitol, in addition to their big suites in the Congressional office bldgs.). 

Here was the news:

Greg Olear tweet: "Interim Speaker flexing his muscles in the most Alpha Male way possible—by making the octogenarian grandmother move furniture while she’s on the other coast at her dear friend’s funeral. Tough guy, this McHenry. Not one to trifle with."

Joe Killian tweet: "There are a number of ways to elicit respect, project authority and express outrage that do not involve dramatically slamming a gavel down, even if you're 5'8'' with your lifts in and given to wearing bow ties. But they aren't going to win the big stuffed bear at the carnival."

A Roomful of Men With No Balls

And one woman willing to stand up to the very stable genius.

Messin' With Sasquatch

Nancy Pelosi “hit on something that is core to [Trump's] con. His whole life is about the cover-up. He has covered up his academic record, his health reports, his dalliances with women, his finances, his family history. Even while he was saying he was the most transparent president in history, his Treasury secretary was across town telling Congress, ‘I’m not giving you the president’s tax returns.’ "

--Tim O'Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, quoted by Maureen Dowd

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Some Democrats are upset -- or at least antsy-pantsy -- that Nancy Pelosi isn't charging ahead on impeachment. But we're watching her and see her strategy, and we appreciate the explanation of that strategy that our friend Evan Hurst published last Thursday:

Do you see how she's fucking with his mind? She's pretty sure -- and we're pretty sure she's right -- that Trump wants nothing more right now than for the House Democrats to hop, skip and bumblefuck into a speedy impeachment, so that it can quickly go to the current Senate before things get too much worse for Trump, Mitch McConnell can throw a show trial, it'll lose, and then the GOP can hit the 2020 campaign running before the end of 2019. 

Whereas Pelosi seems to be saying, "No, Donald, we're sorry. We're not handing you that ... yet. We're going to let alllllllllll these investigations get really nasty and let you lose in court a whole bunch more, and we're going to look at your taxes and your weird foreign money stuff and see who really owns your ass, and we're going to put every person you know in a chair in front of the appropriate House committee, and if they don't show up, they'll be held in contempt, maybe even under Congress's power of inherent contempt, and they'll be fined $25,000 a day, and then you'll lose some more in court over THAT ... and once we have ALL THE FACTS in our hands, well ... WHO KNOWS WHAT WE MIGHT DO?"

In other words, she's going to make him bleed out slowly (figuratively, of course!), and then when it's time, it will be time. Do you see how she's doing that?

We see how she's doing that.

The Greatest Moment From SOTU2019

Nancy Pelosi, dog-walking a very bad pooch.

And a look that will be on T-shirts before the close of business today!

Did you notice how often Twitterman turned to his left, checking out in his peripheral vision whether Nancy Pelosi was reacting correctly to his applause lines? Here's what he said that occasioned this memorable moment in SOTU history:

“We must reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good.”

At the moment captured by the photo, Trump is actually mouthing "Thank you!" to Pelosi, completely missing the subtext of her mockery.

Why mock that line in his speech? 

Because this is "a president who proudly retaliates against his enemies, taunts his political foes with nicknames and considers himself one of the world’s great counter-punchers" (Philip Rucker et al.).  Just yesterday, during a lunch with major print and broadcast journalists, Trump had "assailed Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) as a 'nasty son of a bitch,' ridiculed former vice president Joe Biden as 'dumb' for his history of gaffes, and accused Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) of 'choking like a dog' ” (Rucker).

Last night, it was Teleprompter Trump, who reads high-minded, normal-sounding lines like he's reading a hostage statement, while we all know the real man. Nancy Pelosi is drawing a bead.

DJT never appreciates irony though he's a great creator of it.

Real Men Don't Eat Pelosi

But they do, apparently, eat Chinese with Pelosi.

That now-famous dinner at the White House two nights ago has caused a lot of indigestion among those not actually at the dinner. What did Trump agree to with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi? What did he give away? What did he promise? (Not that anything he ever says or promises means squat.)

Republicans have spent many years equating the name Pelosi with political evil, and here comes Trump who breaks out the chopsticks with her. And then deals on granting amnesty to the DACA kids. Not only deals, but according to principals in the meeting, strikes a deal. With Nancy Pelosi (and, oh yes, Chuck Schumer).

It's an amnesty deal, make no mistake. Enough so that Ann Coulter tweeted, "At this point, who DOESN'T want Trump impeached?"

I think we may have finally reached a crux in testing the Trump brag: "I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue, and I wouldn't lose any supporters." He just shot the heart out of "BUILD THE WALL" chanters, didn't he?

Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac Whipped by Hurricane Winds

The US Congress passed the debt ceiling and Hurricane Harvey relief bill yesterday, and Trump quickly signed it. In the US House, some 90 Republicans voted against it, including Madam Virginia Foxx, who's rarely (ever?) voted to help anybody caught in a catastrophe.

Those 90 Republicans, and a good number of other Republicans who ended up voting for the "deal" hatched between Trump and the Democratic leadership but who actually and actively hated it because it was a deal hatched between Trump and the Democratic leadership, made their displeasure known earlier in the day when Trump's top lieutenants came to Capitol Hill to woo them.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump's budget director, got booed. Steven Mnuchin, his treasury secretary, got hissed at. “[Mnuchin's] last words, and I quote, was, ‘Vote for the debt ceiling for me,’ ” said Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), who leads a group of conservative members. “That did not go over well in the room at all …. His performance was in­cred­ibly poor.”

Said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi after the vote with its 90 Republican defections, “If I ever as leader or as speaker had 90 members vote against one of the easiest bills to vote for, which is disaster assistance, you know they have a philosophical problem with governance.”

Duh.

Trump: Full Frontal with the Democrats

Photo by Al Drago for the NYTimes

House Speaker Paul Ryan had earlier in the day yesterday called "the deal" that Trump struck with Congressional Democrats "ridiculous" and "disgraceful." Yet Trump jumped at the offer from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to tie Hurricane Harvey relief to a three-month extension of government funding and increase in the debt ceiling.

In other words -- and the short version -- Schumer and Pelosi ate Republican lunch.

Besides Schumer and Pelosi, representing the Democrats, who else was there? Trump, yes, but also House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. All those Republicans opposed the Schumer-Pelosi plan -- one might say, opposed it bitterly -- but Trump ignored them. In fact, later on Air Force One, on his way to North Dakota, Trump deliberately praised Schumer and Pelosi for striking a deal with him while not even mentioning the Republicans who were also in the meeting.

Schumer and Pelosi now have more than just leverage. Their three-month deal on the debt ceiling will force another painful vote for Republicans around Christmas time, with every chance of political disaster. Paul Ryan had wanted a debt ceiling extension of 18 months, which would have put another vote beyond the 2018 mid-term elections. Trump in effect shat in Ryan's hat.

Trump also later talked up the mutual willingness among the Trump-Schumer-Pelosi triumvirate to make the "Dream Act" (DACA) into solid law. Trump now wants the Democrats in Congress to save him from the blowback over his tromping on DACA on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ryan and McConnell fumed in the corner like jilted spouses in a nasty divorce.

The deal struck between the Democrats and Trump still has to go for votes in both House and Senate, and many Republicans are steaming mad about it. “The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad,” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska tweeted. Representative Mark Walker of North Carolina, chair of the Republican Study Committee, said, “I’m still processing this, but my first instinct is I’m not very happy about it." But can Republicans afford to vote against it?

Score one for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

Nearer, Our Wall Street, To Thee

Our own dyspepsia with the Obama administration grew after January 2009 the closer to Wall Street the president cozied up. The damping down of economic populism throughout the Democratic Party, from the top down, is at least partly to blame for the following recent developments: the electoral losses in 2010 and 2014, the blossoming of the Tea Party, and the Occupy Wall Street (and everywhere else) movement. Some of us believe that the loss of our populist edge is largely to blame for those displays of discontent.

Do you hear the loud smacking of lips coming from the canyons of Wall Street at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton candidacy? Yes, it's drowning out progressive and populist groans at the thought of even more sell-outs to the bankers and the other "lords of the universe."

That's why the Elizabeth Warren talk isn't going away. She looks very much like the best potential candidate, with plenty of economic smarts and a toughness of spirit. Hillary is stale bread compared to Elizabeth.

Jim Himes

Now comes news that the leading contender to become chief Democratic campaign operative, candidate recruiter, and fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is a former Goldman Sachs vice president and hedge fund suckup, Jim Himes of Greenwich, Conn. Nancy Pelosi gets to make the appointment.

Robert Kuttner asks, rhetorically, "So the last thing Democrats need going forward is an even closer affinity with Wall Street, right?"

Goddamn it all to hell if this comes to pass. The love of money is the root of all evil. I learned that in Sunday School. If the Democratic Party wants to become fully irrelevant, or merely the semi-official handmaiden to the billionaires (which is essentially what it's been for the last six years), then by all means, Nancy, signal your abandonment of the people by the appointment of Jim Himes as head of the DCCC.

When a Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words

Today, at the Capitol

The Nerve!

House Democrats show some strength. We ain't holding our breath yet, but we like the implications of some backbone in Washington. Thank you, Nancy Pelosi.

Why We Like Nancy Pelosi

Shortly before 4 p.m. today, the House passed an extension of the Bush tax cuts for people making less than $250,000 on a vote of 234 - 188. Most Republicans voted against it (including Duchess Virginia Foxx), but Ron Paul (R of Texas) and Walter Jones (R of North Carolina) voted for it. Tea Partiers might like to cogitate on that during commercial breaks for the Glenn Beck Show. (And BTW, Heath Shuler, who had opposed Nancy Pelosi for leadership in the 112th Congress, also voted for it.)

'Course, we all know that while the Dems in the U.S. House were standing strong against giving the store away to the very rich, President Obama was busy behind the scenes trying to get them to cave, along with him and the effing Senate. to the effing rich-obsessed Republicans.

"A More Moderate Approach"

A little more milquetoast with your weak tea?

How about a little jackass in a power suit?

That's what Heath Shuler wants to deliver on Capitol Hill, if only House Democrats will recognize his outstanding possibilities for driving the Party into even more of an all-out retreat. Here's a bold prediction: Heath Shuler will never be Minority Leader.

Nancy Pelosi, who will be Minority Leader, is one of the few Democrats in Congress with some balls. Men like Shuler can't stand her. Tough.