The Speaker continues her reign by gendering non-gendered terms, banning the words father and mother from the House rules, and inviting coronavirus positive House Members back to work, what could possibly go wrong with her in charge?
“Amen and a woman,” so ended the opening prayer to start the 117th Congress.
Foreshadowing the insanity of gendering even non-gendered words, Pelosi and her team had already announced proposed rule changes to promote “inclusion and diversity” on Friday, December 31.
These rule changes include the following: “establish the Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth; require standing committees to include in their oversight plans a discussion of how committee work over the forthcoming Congress will address issues of inequities on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or national origin; honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral; make permanent the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to facilitate a diverse workforce that is reflective of our Members and the districts they represent; and survey the diversity of witness panels at committee hearings to ensure we are hearing from diverse groups of experts as we craft legislation.”
Apparently, the Democrats are going all in on identity politics, all the time.
Of particular interest is the clause to “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships.” This includes everything from the mundane, replacing “seamen” with “seafarers,” to the insidious, striking every reference to fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. Literally, it reads “strike ‘father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife’…and insert ‘parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law’…”
Yes, according to the 117th Congress, we no longer have mothers and fathers, only parents, neither aunts nor uncles, only parent’s siblings. Either way, Nancy Pelosi will return as Speaker of the House, but preside over a diminished Democrat majority.
According to The Hill, “The 216-209 vote was more dramatic than anyone would have guessed just two months ago, when Democrats went into the elections predicting big gains to pad their House majority in 2021. Instead, they lost at least 13 seats, trimming their numbers to a mere 222 seats — the smallest House majority in decades — and complicating Pelosi’s effort to keep the Speaker’s gavel for another two-year term.”
Pelosi, however, was able to pick up a couple of votes from new members that had previously failed to endorse her. For example, Jamaal Bowman, a representative from New York, noted, “Our country needs stability right now. It’s really important for the Democratic Party to come together and figure out not just how to govern for the 117th but going forward for the country.”
I’m not sure Nancy Pelosi and stability belong in the same sentence.
This is the same woman that thought she’d help alleviate the country’s coronavirus fears by appearing in a video in front of a $24,000 refrigerator, eating $13 a pint ice cream. “We all have found our ways to keep our spirits up during these trying times. Mine just happens to fill my freezer,” she tweeted proudly, as if this is what Americans wanted to hear while their jobs disappeared.
Fast forward a few months, and the Speaker was busy organizing political stunts complete with cultural appropriation.
While introducing the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, she was joined by other Democrats kneeling in African inspired kente cloth. The stunt was so ridiculous, even normally liberal The New Yorker wasn’t pleased. Doreen St. Felix wrote, “Swathed in identical kente stoles, the lawmakers, intent on conveying solidarity with their constituents, only made themselves models of obtuseness.”
Speaker Pelosi remained obtuse when it came to the needs of the American people coping with the coronavirus pandemic. In a shameless political stunt, she and the Democrat controlled House passed a whopping 2.2 trillion dollar stimulus bill during the election in October. The bill was so bad even 18 Democrats voted against it.
While it isn’t unusual to use an initial bill as a starting point for negotiations, Pelosi refused to negotiate in good faith with the Senate. Instead, she offered this type of stable gibberish, “Even if we came to some agreement, nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. It’s the language.”
The truth is, she wasn’t going to agree to anything during the election, insisting it was $2.2 trillion or nothing. Her goal was to hurt Trump, not help the American people. She admitted as much herself shortly after the election, saying a smaller bill was suddenly “OK now because we have a new president.”
Pelosi then proceeded to shepherd through a $900 billion stimulus Frankenstein monster merged with a regular spending bill complete with $10 million for gender studies in Pakistan. The American people were given a scant $600, half of what was in her original bill, so stability for Pakistan gender studies, but none for you.
Speaking of stability, the new President himself, or at least his Electoral College win, comes before Congress this week. Fireworks are expected as 140 some-odd House members and 12 some-odd Senators plan to object to the results, claiming irregularities and fraud tipped the election to Biden instead of the rightful winner, Trump.
Here’s Pelosi in 2005, when Barbara Boxer objected to the election results:
“Today we are witnessing Democracy at work. This isn’t as some of our Republican colleagues have referred to it, sadly, as frivolous. This debate is fundamental to our democracy. The representatives of the American people in this house are standing up for three fundamental American beliefs: The right to vote is sacred; that a representative has a duty to represent his or her constituents; and that the rule of law is the hallmark of our nation.”
This time around, however, objections are the equivalent of blowing up democracy itself.
Referring to a leaked phone call where Trump asked the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” the votes to make him the victor, another icon of stability in the House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, claimed “I absolutely think it’s an impeachable offense, and if it was up to me, there would be articles on the floor quite quickly, but he, I mean, he is trying to — he is attacking our very election. He’s attacking our very election.”
She plans to impeach him in 2 weeks? Left unsaid is that even the sainted Barack Obama, merely 3 days after he was first sworn in, worried that voters had doubts “whether our processes are fair and just.”
Of course, what Pelosi and the Democrats are really saying is: It’s perfectly alright when Democrats do it, but bad, very bad when Republicans do the same. Democracy for them, but not for you, much like Pelosi feels she’s entitled to rent out salons and not wear masks while you remain under a stay at home order. Pelosi even feels it’s acceptable for House members to come to work with the virus itself.
Perhaps needless to say, no event these days can be complete without a coronavirus scare. According to The Hill, Pelosi’s margin was so tight “that some Democrats who had recently tested positive for COVID-19 traveled to Washington anyway to cast their vote for Pelosi. Some of the day’s drama focused on Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), who on Dec. 28 announced that she had received a positive test. Despite that diagnosis, Moore flew to Washington and cast her vote for Pelosi on the House floor, prompting howls from Republicans who claimed that Democrats were more concerned about securing the Speaker’s gavel for Pelosi than the health and safety of lawmakers and staff.”
The Democrats, however, apparently have no problem with any of this: Pelosi is back until 2023. She will be 82 years old when she finally retires. Her counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer is a young 70 by comparison. The President-elect, Joe Biden, is in the middle of the pack at 78. This is today’s Democratic leadership, old, out of touch, and faintly insane.
It’s going to be a crazy couple of years.
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