All the presidents’ dogs

The New Neo Posted on by

Presidents often own pets, in particular dogs. It humanizes them, makes them seem like regular guys. And of course, many of them just like dogs and have always had them.

And then there’s President Biden. What gives? The reports are that Biden’s dogs have been biters, and that Biden may have been mistreating them by hitting and kicking them. A Freedom of Information Act has been filed by Judicial Watch in order to find out. If it’s true, it’s certainly not a good sign about Biden – but only one of so very many.

You can see a history of presidential pets here. I think that, so far, the most famous one was FDR’s Fala, a Scottie he mentioned in this well-known speech, and is featured in a DC statue. It’s worth having a listen to FDR talking about Fala:

(An aside – whenever I see FDR during his days as president, it startles me that he looked so much like my grandmother.)

Trump was one of the rare presidents who didn’t have any pets, and was quite frank about the fact that, although it might be politically expedient to own one, he just didn’t want one.

Remember when Romney was the GOP nominee in 2012, and was accused of having mistreated a dog years earlier by putting it in a crate on the roof of his car? And LBJ made headlines by hoisting his beagle by the ears. You can read about it here, including LBJ’s tone-deaf comment, “”It does them good to let them yelp.” Yikes!

Biden’s novel idea for the border: build a wall!

The New Neo Posted on by

An idea whose time has apparently come:

The Biden administration has paved the way for the construction of a new wall along the southern border in Texas by waiving more than a dozen federal laws in a stark reversal of its previous stance on the physical barrier.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the plan to bypass long drawn-out environmental reviews in order to expedite border wall construction in Starr County, TX as the administration struggles to handle an ongoing migrant crisis that has strained local and federal resources. …

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, said in a notice posted on the US Federal Registry.

The Democratic administration is picking up where former President Donald Trump left off.

What gives? The cries of woe from the non-border states that have received a recent influx of illegal aliens (I’ve decided to use that older term, which has the advantages of accuracy and clarity) must have been practically deafening in the ears of the Biden administration. And my guess is that the polls were very worrying as well. Those are the only reasons I can think of for the issuing of this order at this point.

Question: will the environmental groups that have been so active in opposing the wall in the past start suing this administration now?

Playing musical offices: Pelosi loses

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve read so many differing reports about who ordered Pelosi out of her office and why. Here’s the latest:

We wrote earlier about how one of the first orders of business for speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) in the aftermath of the House’s ousting of Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as Speaker was to notify former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that she needed to immediately remove her things and vacate her hideaway office. …

In an update to this story, we’re learning that it wasn’t McHenry but McCarthy himself who was behind the call to get Pelosi kicked out of her hideaway office, something few on the House side have outside of high-ranking members. Further, the person who will be utilizing that office will be … McCarthy …

Interesting.

I also want to call your attention to this comment by “former legislator.” If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a look.

Here’s my question about Gaetz’s method of removing McCarthy

The New Neo Posted on by

As just about everyone who reads this blog already knows, the mechanism Gaetz used to get rid of McCarthy as Speaker was basically to allow the Democrats and a small GOP group to remove a Republican Speaker through the alliance of eight Republicans and every single Democrat.

The only reason I can see that this hadn’t occurred before was convention – plus it would be very difficult for such a tiny group to do it unless the majority margin was small. But it certainly might have happened. However, it was understood that, although legal, such a move might be suicidal, destructive, chaotic (whichever adjective you prefer) because basically any Speaker would be thus threatened if he or she disappointed even a very small number of his or her party members. With 221 Republicans in the House right now, it can almost be guaranteed that any Speaker would anger or disappoint or frustrate at least a tiny number of GOP members of the House. It’s basically inevitable.

Let’s put aside for a moment whether you think McCarthy was an okay Speaker or whether you think he dearly needed removal. My question is this: now that Gaetz has crossed the Rubicon, what’s to stop any other small group from doing the same thing? Power is intoxicating; how exciting to be able to exercise it with just a few colleagues! You might theorize that, in fact, Gaetz had more supporters than we know and that others would have voted with him if necessary. But that’s just a theory, and it’s irrelevant to my question because the removal could have been accomplished by that small group alone without any support or help at all from any other Republican. And I don’t think the Democrats would be at all reluctant to continue to cooperate with Republican chaos, and the removal of a succession of GOP Speakers.

Many people say, so what? The House GOP isn’t doing much anyway (and of course their power is limited by the fact that the Democrats control the Senate and the presidency). But a demonstration of that sort of continuing and repeated chaos and dissension on the part of Republicans would, IMHO, lead to them losing both houses in 2024. And if that happens, we’ll see just how different a Democrat legislature is from a Republican one, especially if the president is also a Democrat.

But back to my question: what’s to stop other small factions from doing the same to any GOP member who replaces McCarthy as Speaker? Is it just the fear that it would backfire on the right and enable the left? That certainly didn’t stop Gaetz.

And that’s assuming McCarthy can be replaced fairly quickly and without too much fuss. If that happens, and if the rest of the GOP manages to stay its hand and not follow in Gaetz’s footsteps in terms of Democrat-aided Speaker-removal, then this storm will pass. But if not? Well, He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.

About the history of party control of Congress and the presidency

The New Neo Posted on by

As part of the discussion of Gaetz’s move yesterday, commenter “Sharon W” wrote (I’m pretty sure sarcastically):

Maybe Art Deco can enunciate for us all the gains conservatives experienced when the House, Senate and Presidency were in Republican hands.

Most people on the right – and I include myself – share some of that bitterness and frustration about how little was ever accomplished when “the House, Senate, and presidency were in Republican hands.” The anger is understandable, and it’s a large part of what is behind much of the support for Gaetz’s move.

But I think it’s also instructive to look back at the actual figures about Republican control, something I did in this post I wrote shortly before Trump – and a Republican Congress – took office. Please take a look. You may be surprised at how seldom since the days of Coolidge and Hoover that such a situation – the GOP controlling both houses and the presidency – existed. Here are a few excerpts:

If you study Congressional history in terms of party control (see this important chart), you will note that, ever since Coolidge and Hoover, Republicans have only had that “offense” opportunity (control of the presidency and both houses) twice. The first time (and then they barely had control) was in 1953-1955 under Eisenhower. That was a long long time ago, I think you would agree, and Eisenhower wasn’t exactly a conservative. Also, the reason I wrote “barely” is that the GOP’s “control” of the Senate balanced on a razor’s edge, with 48 Republicans to 47 Democrats plus one Independent (the Independent being Wayne Morse, who basically was no Republican).

The second time was much more recently, and it’s the one most present-day readers remember: under George W. Bush, and in particular the years 2005-2007. He also had majorities in 2003-2005, but a much weaker one (especially in the Senate), so weak it could be undermined by just a couple of senatorial RINOs. Those Bush years were also dominated by the war in Iraq, and unfortunately Republicans did not capitalize on their very rare moment of being in control and thus able to play “offense.”

That rankles, I know, and it does with me as well.

But I think it’s wrong to pretend there’s some long history of Republicans being in control and not taking advantage of it. I’ve just recounted the sum total of times Republicans have been in control of Congress and the presidency since the days of Hoover. What’s more, it’s actually the Democrats who’ve been in control of both far far more often ever since FDR, and therefore able to play real “offense” in the sense I’m talking about.

In addition, many times that the Democrats have held presidency and Congress, their majorities in both houses have been overwhelming, featuring numbers that Republicans haven’t rivaled since before FDR and have not come close to rivaling after (even during the Bush years when they did have control for a few years). All of the presidents in my lifetime whose party has held both houses at any time during their presidency (other than the aforementioned George W. Bush and briefly and weakly Eisenhower) were Democrats. All the ones who had very strong majorities for much of the time were Democrats as well. Besides FDR, we have Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, and early Clinton,. Actually, Clinton was the only post-FDR Democratic president who had to face a divided Congress for a substantial (at least half) portion of his presidency. The only one.

Check out the numbers; it’s quite astounding how large the Democratic margins in Congress were during the last two-thirds of the 20th Century. As an example, from 1935-1937 the Senate was about 72% Democratic and the House 74% under FDR, and those margins increased in 1937-1939 to 78% and 76%. Hard to see what Republicans could have done against that. During 1945-1947, Truman’s Congress was very close to 60% Democrat in the Senate and about 56% Democrat in the House (for the next two years he had to deal with a Republican Congress, however). JFK? 64% of the Senate was Democratic during his first two years, and that margin increased to 67% for the next two years (some of which, of course, became the LBJ years). At the same time, the House was 60% and 59% Democratic. The margins increased still again during LBJ’s first elected term, 1965-1967, to about 68% in both branches of Congress.

In contrast, Nixon (and then Ford) had to deal with an enormous Democratic majority of around 58% for both branches (although the margins reduced somewhat during the later years of his/their terms) the whole time he was in office. Carter was initially given a 61% lead in the Senate and almost 67% of the House, later reduced to a still-strong 57%/64%.

I’m doing all this math very quickly, so you might find errors, but that’s what I get when I try to figure it out.

Study it all you want, but you won’t find margins anything like that—not even remotely like that—for any Republican president since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, and Coolidge. And Coolidge only had 53% of the Senate and approximately 52% of the House at first, which went up a bit in the next election before it went down in the subsequent one, with the Senate Republican lead in the Senate fading to one vote. With Hoover, the Senate went back up to 58% GOP (then down again to a one-vote margin during the last two years of his term), while the House was 61% Republican and then down to a tie during those last two years.

So, that was the situation for Republicans controlling the presidency and Congress during the 20th Century, except for the aforementioned brief times during the Eisenhower years when they barely controlled Congress. And then in the 21st Century, more slight control for the GOP under Bush.

What a contrast! For nearly a hundred years Congress has mostly been in control of Democrats, often very strongly in control, and that’s also been when there’s a Democratic president. Republican control has been weak and extremely sporadic, and therefore most Republican presidents have faced an oppositional Congress.

What happened since I wrote that post? GOP control of both houses of Congress and the presidency only lasted for the first two years of Trump’s term, because in the midterms the control of the House flipped back to the Democrats. What’s more, even during those first two years, the GOP control of the Senate was balanced on a knife-edge, and that meant that just a couple of people such as John McCain sabotaged some of what the GOP was trying to do. During those first two years, there actually were two government shutdowns, but not much was accomplished by that means or by any other means except several SCOTUS appointments. So that short two year period is another cause for anger on the right, and yet government shutdowns didn’t do any good and may actually have helped lead to the Democrats gaining control of the House in the midterms.

I don’t have an answer as to what should be done at this point to improve things. But I think we need to be realistic about the problem, which includes the fact that the GOP has never – since Hoover’s first term – had the kind of definitive majority control numbers the Democrats regularly had, almost never had control of the legislative and executive branch at the same time, and the GOP doesn’t have that kind of control now.

Newt Gingrich on Matt Gaetz’s move

The New Neo Posted on by

Those of you who think Gingrich was a good Speaker, and knowledgeable about the workings of the House, please take a look at what he wrote just prior to yesterday’s vote to oust McCarthy:

Newt Gingrich on Tuesday urged House Republicans to vote down an internal rebellion against Speaker Kevin McCarthy and remove the instigator from their conference.

“Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) is an anti-Republican who has become actively destructive to the conservative movement,” wrote Gingrich, a former Republican speaker, in a Washington Post op-ed. “Gaetz’s motion to remove McCarthy should be swiftly defeated, and then he should be expelled from the House Republican Conference.” …

Gingrich first floated the idea of expelling Gaetz from the GOP’s narrow House majority on Sunday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Is Gaetz secretly an agent for the Democratic Party? No one else is doing as much to undermine, weaken, and cripple the House GOP,” Gingrich opined in another post.

Other populist-leaning conservatives, including Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), the policy chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, and Fox News host Mark Levin have recently criticized Gaetz for refusing to support any stopgap measure to fund the government, thereby forcing McCarthy to pass a less conservative version with Democratic votes. It was McCarthy doing just that on Saturday that prompted Gaetz to move for his ouster.

Roy and Levin are saying that because Gaetz wouldn’t cooperate with a more conservative stopgap funding bill that McCarthy worked on, McCarthy passed a less conservative one. Then Gaetz accomplished the ouster with the support of 3.6% of the House Republicans and 100% of the House Democrats.

More from Gingrich [emphasis mine]:

“Gaetz obviously hates House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.)—and that’s fine,” Gingrich wrote in the Post. “But Gaetz has gone beyond regular drama. He is destroying the House GOP’s ability to govern and draw a sharp contrast with the policy disasters of the Biden administration.” …

According to Gingrich, Gaetz is also violating a House Republican Conference rule that the motion to vacate “should only be available with the agreement of the Republican Conference so as to not allow Democrats to choose the Speaker.”

“I served 20 years in the House, including four as speaker. On occasion, I fought against the GOP establishment. I led the fight against President George H.W. Bush’s 1990 tax increase after he had broken his word about ‘no new taxes.’ I felt bound to stay with my commitment to the American voters,” Gingrich recalled. “Unlike Gaetz, though, when I rebelled, I represented the majority view of the caucus at the time.”

For those who have forgotten some of what Gingrich did, here’s a refresher:

During negotiations with the Democrats who held majorities in the House and Senate, President George H. W. Bush reached a deficit reduction package which contained tax increases despite his campaign promise of “read my lips: no new taxes”. Gingrich led a revolt that defeated the initial appropriations package and led to the 1990 United States federal government shutdown. The deal was supported by the President and Congressional leaders from both parties after long negotiations, but Gingrich walked out during a televised event in the White House Rose Garden. House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel characterized Gingrich’s revolt as “a thousand points of spite.” …

In the 1994 campaign season, in an effort to offer an alternative to Democratic policies and to unite distant wings of the Republican Party, Gingrich and several other Republicans came up with a Contract with America, which laid out 10 policies that Republicans promised to bring to a vote on the House floor during the first 100 days of the new Congress, if they won the election. The contract was signed by Gingrich and other Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The contract ranged from issues such as welfare reform, term limits, crime, and a balanced budget/tax limitation amendment, to more specialized legislation such as restrictions on American military participation in United Nations missions.

In the November 1994 midterm elections, Republicans gained 54 seats and took control of the House for the first time since 1954.

Gingrich was a conservative and certainly had cojones to spare. He also had some other advantages: he knew how to build effective alliances within the GOP. He had a detailed plan and the ability to articulate that plan to the American people and then execute it. In addition, he had the advantage of having a larger majority in the House than at present (it was 25 votes in the House, with a Repulican-controlled Senate as well, 53-27). That gave him more power to pressure Bill Clinton, who had been elected by presenting himself as a moderate. Under Gingrich, there were bills on welfare reform, tax relief, and a balanced budget. Two government shutdowns were involved.

Gingrich survived a challenge to his Speakership, but then in the 1998 election the GOP lost five seats, which sealed Gingrich’s fate and emboldened a group of Republicans (I’m not sure how many) to say they would challenge his Speaker position. He resigned.

Who succeeded Gingrich? Dennis Hastert, who was in turn succeeded by Nancy Pelosi, who was suceeded by John Boehner and then Paul Ryan, then Pelosi again, and then McCarthy.

But back to Gaetz. He has few supporters on the right – very very few. So the only power he has is borrowed power that the Democrats gave him. That is highly dangerous, and of course they will stab Gaetz in the back the moment it is to their advantage. What is his plan?

The “burn it down” crowd on the right doesn’t seem to think he needs a plan; at least, that’s my impression. They are okay with destroying the present powers in the party, because they have been a big disappointment. I share that disappointment, but I don’t think destruction without a plan – and accomplished with the help of self-serving Democrats, and with little GOP support – is ordinarily a good thing. If something good does end up coming from it, fine; for example, Jim Jordan would be an improvement, IMHO. But I’m not at all sure that will occur because, with such a tiny majority, the party needs unity to elect a new Speaker. And the party is not unified, nor do I see this Gaetz move as fostering unity. Au contraire.

Again, if I’m wrong in the gloominess of my prognostications, that would be fine with me.

The pro-Gaetz crowd tends to see no difference between the two parties as currently constructed, so destruction doesn’t bother them for that reason. But I see a big difference, as I believe we will find out if the Democrats gain control of the House in 2024 and keep control of the Senate, with a Democrat president. SCOTUS becomes dominated by the left, HR1 does away with voting security on a national basis, and Puerto Rico and DC become states. That latter act would assure Democrat control of the Senate and the presidency for the foreseeable future. And that would be just the beginning of the sharp moves we’d see to cement the power of the left.

Open thread 10/4/23

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve seen him live about ten times, the most concerts I’ve ever seen by a single person. Never been disappointed:

Here’s a photo I took in 2008 at a concert in a small venue. I had an obstructed view and so they moved me to a seat quite literally at his feet. I had to look up, but I got quite a view. There’s no zoom here; this was where I was sitting, with my nose up against the edge of the stage:

The House votes McCarthy out as Speaker

The New Neo Posted on by

This is what happened:

Lawmakers have voted to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from his leadership role, the first time in the history of the House of Representatives that the chamber voted to boot a member from the top job.

Eight Republicans voted with every present Democrat to vacate the speaker’s chair. The final vote was 216 to 210 in favor of McCarthy’s ouster.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., introduced a measure against McCarthy known as a motion to vacate on Monday night, accusing him of breaking promises he made to win the speaker’s gavel in January.

I think this is a bad development. You notice why I say that? Let me highlight the reason: “Eight Republicans voted with every present Democrat to vacate the speaker’s chair.” This was approved by Democrats and just a tiny number of Republicans. Do those eight Republicans – led by Gaetz – think that appropriations votes, or much of anything else, will go any better with another person in charge? If so, I think they are wrong.

In my opinion, now there will be an even more bitter civil war among Republicans, weakening them. And who will become Speaker? My prediction is that it won’t be someone better than McCarthy. I’d be fine with having those predictions be too gloomy, and seeing some better result. But at the moment I see this as a negative development.

More details here, here, and here.

The left and the Elites

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “huxley” asks an excellent question, and then answers it:

I understand it’s not a priority in conservative circles to wonder WTF happened to the Left. But, as an ex-leftist, I do.

Exactly how did the Left swivel away from the concerns of the (mostly) genuinely oppressed to this weird boutique world of mix’n’match identities, bizarrely ranked?”

I’ve concluded the Elites have beautifully coopted the Old-New-Left by way of the Social Justice Movement’s identity politics. …

Back in the 60s/70s the Left was perpetually on guard against being coopted by the Establishment to the point of paranoia.

Now the Left welcomes being coopted. It’s not a simple betrayal. Since the Left took over the academic high ground, the Elites have been indoctrinated into the Left and it became a class distinction. (Witness the BBC.)

And now the Elites have eaten the Left.

Kinda brilliant in its way .

I’ll take a stab at it as well. The question interests me, too, although I was never on the left, exactly. I was merely a garden-variety liberal Democrat, now a much scarcer commodity than it was back then.

Isn’t what’s being described in that quote the usual basic trajectory of the left when it comes to power, although the details might be somewhat different? That is, to start out being the champion of the working person when the left is on the outs and trying to worm its way into power, and then to change? That early left will speak idealistically about all sorts of things, but once in power it’s the nature of the beast to do whatever it takes to – well, I’ll let Milan Kundera explain, in a quote from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:

… human beings have always aspired to an idyll, a garden where nightingales sing, a realm of har­mony where the world does not rise up as a stranger against man nor man against other men, where the world and all its people are molded from a single stock and the fire lighting up the heavens is the fire burning in the hearts of men, where every man is a note in a magnificent Bach fugue and anyone who refuses his note is a mere black dot, useless and meaningless, easily caught and squashed between the fingers like an insect.”

It is very very easy for ideological fanatics to segue into tyranny when they get power.

But what of the left’s unity with “elites”? They’ve long embraced and been embraced by academics on the left, of which there are many. The academics are the vanguard, the conduit to the minds of the young, and the academics are good at justifying almost anything as long as its done by the left and for providing theories to back and promote whatever the left might want to do.

What’s harder to understand – at least on the face of it – is the left’s embrace of financial elites. But it’s always the case that they need funds, and financial elites can help provide those funds with generous donations. Also, with the advent of the internet and its growing dominance, corporations such as Facebook and Twitter (until Musk bought the latter) were near-perfect ways for leftist governments to exert censorship power beyond their wildest dreams (the left is always pro free speech until it gets into power, after which it is gung-ho for censorship).

These days the financial elites are mostly those with degrees from colleges where leftists have been doing the teaching, and thus they have already been primed to agree with the left. Plus, if a rich person feels guilty about his or her wealth, what better way to obtain a “get out of conscience-jail free” card than to support the left? Identity politics makes it that much more attractive, because the financial elites can pat themselves on the back for being free of bigotry as bigotry is defined these days.

So what we have now is the marriage of much of corporate America with the left, and because the left is in power it can give perks to its financial supporters. It makes perfect sense, really. But – although I suppose this is just quibbling – I wouldn’t say with huxley that “the Elites have eaten the Left.” I’d say that it’s the other way around, although the Elites have willingly let themselves be eaten.

Trump and the New York show trial

The New Neo Posted on by

All Americans should be outraged about the show-trial nature of the charges of fraud against Trump in New York. The persecution is obvious and blatant. The tragedy is not really the biased prosecutor and judge, although of course these are awful. The larger tragedy is the acquiescence and approval of so many people who don’t recognize it for what it is, and that our free press has no interest in informing them about what’s going on, because the target is the hated Trump.

And I suppose that more and more people probably have become unaware of what a show trial even is. In fact, they are unaware of the most basic facts of our government, in a survey from a year ago:

Americans’ understanding of basic facts about the U.S. government declined for the first time in six years, as fewer than half in a new survey could name all three branches of government.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual Constitution Day Civics Survey found a significant drop in the percentage of Americans who could name all three branches of government — executive, legislative, and judicial — falling by 9 percentage points from a year earlier.

About a quarter of Americans surveyed could not name a single branch.

The survey also found a decline in the number of respondents who could name any of the five freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment.

Freedom of religion was named by 24 percent of those surveyed, falling from 56 percent from the previous survey. Those who named freedom of the press also declined sharply down by 30 percentage points from 50 percent in 2021.

Abysmal ignorance, and no accident. Education in these areas has been purposely dumbed down.

But then there’s literature – although again, I wonder how many people read the original anymore:

‘It’s a pun!’ the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, ‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’

‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.

‘I won’t!’ said Alice.

Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’

Would that that last sentence were the case.

Andrew C. McCarthy – no lover of Trump – harshly criticizes the trial in an article entitled “With Trump Already Found Guilty, His New York Fraud Trial Begins” and sutitled “This isn’t a judicial proceeding; it’s a partisan farce.”

I’m not sure about that word “farce,” because isn’t a farce supposed to be humorous? At any rate, here’s the way the piece begins:

The Bolshevik bloc of the Democratic Party is having its fantasy prosecution of Donald Trump play out in real life in New York City. There, in state attorney general Letitia James’s civil-fraud case against the former president, the trial will begin today even though Trump was already found guilty and sentenced to corporate death last week by a robed apparat named Arthur Engoron.

It doesn’t sound like the same Andrew McCarthy who a few years ago thought James Comey and the FBI would treat Trump fairly. But these current proceedings outrage him, and rightly so.

The same for Alan Dershowitz, who speaks about it in this podcast: