Bigotry in Congress

Bigotry on Display in Congress——————

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was elected to Congress only four months ago but she already has stirred up more than her share of controversy for a newly-elected freshman representative. Her remarks accusing Jewish American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty and her use of the expression “It’s about the Benjamins, baby”, an obvious reference to financial  support of Israeli causes by wealthy Jewish Americans, were widely construed as anti-Semitic by fellow Democrats as well as by Republicans, Jews, Christians and members of other religions.

 

To many Jews and supporters of the Jewish state, these words and others she has uttered during her brief and otherwise unremarkable time in office were deeply hurtful. To put it charitably, her choice of words was unwise and reflected poorly on the Congress. She apologized twice in response to the outrage, but her words were unconvincing and self-excusing. Expressing one’s bigotry and then apologizing if the words are construed as hurtful, when you know full well that they are, while expecting all to be forgiven and forgotten, has become a strategy in identity politics. It is pure hypocrisy.

 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to mitigate the damage and avoid alienating Jewish voters, saying Omar’s words “are not based on any anti-Semitic attitude” but rather the fact that “she didn’t have a full appreciation of how they landed on other people”. Seriously? And how could she possibly know that her words did not reflect an anti-Semitic attitude? Can she see into Omar’s soul? Does she mean that Ms. Omar is not a bigot but rather just a nitwit? Is that what the good people of her Minnesota congressional district elected to represent them?

 

House members attempted to put together a resolution condemning Ms. Omar’s words. There erupted then a fierce battle between mature Democrat legislators who still believe in decorum and tolerance and members of the lunatic left who are gradually taking control of the party and seem to believe that freedom of expression means that you can say anything you want about anyone unless, of course, you are a conservative. The resolution thus became watered-down in a manner worthy of one of those toothless United Nations resolutions, condemning bigotry in general. How very helpful.

 

Fellow freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another rising liberal rock star (Democrats seem to award that title to almost any newly-elected member of their party who is young, attractive, talks a lot, favors unlimited entitlements for all and believes that deficits no longer matter), chimed in that the resolution should also condemn discrimination against Hispanics. Others wanted to include LBGT folks. Why not Christians? Or Asian-Americans? Or native Americans? Or conservative speakers on campus? Or any conservatives on campus? Or perhaps Dodger fans?  I could go on, but space and a low ink cartridge constrain me.

 

Twenty-three Republican members declined to support the toothless resolution and were, of course, promptly labelled bigots. Thus attention was diverted from Ms. Omar’s hateful words. Perhaps as its next major agenda item, the Democrat House could work on a resolution condemning evil.

 

Here are two better ideas. Speaker Pelosi should get control of her chamber and demand that members demonstrate respect and decorum. Secondly, Rep. Omar should be removed from her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. That body does not need a member hostile to our only reliable ally in the Middle East. The United Nations has plenty of those.

 

Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution has no provision for recalling elected members of Congress. That’s a pity. The voters of Ms. Omar’s Minneapolis area congressional district, who made the mistake of electing her, will just have to put up with her until the end of her, hopefully single, term. How embarrassing for them.

March 16, 2019

 

 

Trump Walks Away

Trump Was Wise to Walk Away—————————  

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

President Donald Trump walked away from his much- anticipated second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un with little to show for it except a vague agreement to meet again sometime and an understanding that Mr. Kim does not intend to resume testing nuclear weapons for now. Good for Mr. Trump. The North had demanded a total lifting of U. S.-imposed sanctions in return for a promise to close its Yongbyon nuclear weapons facility but not all of its other nuclear facilities.

 

Although Pyongyang’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, later insisted that they did not demand that all sanctions be lifted, Mr. Trump wisely determined that the North ‘s demands were more than we should accept. Lifting sanctions entirely would provide the North with the revenue needed to finance continued development of nuclear weapons without total dismantling of the North’s ability to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. Dismantling the Yongbyon facility was simply not enough, given these circumstances.

 

It must be remembered that our original objective in these talks was to persuade the North to give up all nuclear weapons and the ability to produce them in return for recognition and liberal financial assistance that would enable the impoverished hermit nation to join the community of nations and prosper like its southern neighbor. This was never supposed to be negotiable because partial denuclearization doesn’t work for obvious reasons. This was and will continue to be a tough sell because status as a nuclear power is about all that North Korea has going for it and is probably key to Mr. Kim’s retention of power and control of his generals.

 

Mr. Trump’s effusive praise of the ruthless dictator, who has ordered the murder of his own relatives and who starves his people in order to maintain one of the world’s largest armies, may enrage liberals, but it needs to be viewed in the context of the forgoing. You don’t persuade Mr. Kim to turn his weapons into plowshares and become a good neighbor and that the United States wants to be his friend by continuing to call him “little rocket man” or a murderer. You do it by convincing him that things would be better for him if he did and by treating him with respect whether you like him or not. Otherwise, the only acceptable option could be regime change and bloodshed, perhaps war.

 

The greatest existential threat to the United States and the world is not climate change. We had climate change long before man arrived on the planet. The climate will always change, with or without man’s collaboration. The biggest threat is nuclear proliferation. Nuclear weapons in the hands of mature and stable countries, governed by rational actors is one thing but in the hands of ruthless dictators and terrorists, who place little or no value on human lives or suffering, it is quite another. Americans need to understand that in dealing with nuclear proliferation among nations governed by unpredictable, ruthless dictators or terrorist organizations, partial denuclearization does not represent a partial victory. Any agreement, such as the one with Iran we recently withdrew from or one which the peace-at-any-price crowd may hope we forge with North Korea, that leaves the way open for continued or future nuclear weapons development, is no better than no agreement at all.

 

Nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue states like Iran and North Korea, that have threatened to use them against their neighbors, is a threat to our allies. Israel is our strongest and most reliable ally in the turbulent Middle East and Iran has vowed to destroy it. In Eastern Asia, our strongest and most reliable ally is Japan, the world’s third largest economy, where we have 50,000 military stationed, a carrier battle group, amphibious expeditionary group, numerous strategically-located bases and whose military is compatible with ours. A nuclear armed North Korea, which has fired missiles across Japan, is an existential threat to Japan and to our forces there.

 

As with Iran, nothing short of a verifiable agreement with North Korea that ensures they give up all nuclear weapons and the ability to develop and deploy them will do.

March 11, 2019

Campaign Season Again

Campaign 2020——————————–

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                The parade of Democrat presidential aspirants announcing their candidacy reminds us, if ever we needed reminding, that another presidential campaign is upon us. It seems like only yesterday that we were in the midst of Campaign 2916 and I was writing columns urging the GOP to dump Trump and warning that, by electing an egocentric, buffoonish TV reality show star and real estate tycoon with no political experience, Republicans would blow a golden chance to defeat a flawed Hillary Clinton and recapture the White House.

 

I even argued that Trump was probably the only candidate among the seventeen that could manage to lose to Clinton. That was before James Comey’s last-minute meddling in the election campaign by reopening the investigation into her email scandal, probably swinging the election to Trump. That investigation went nowhere after Comey exceeded his authority as FBI director by pronouncing her guilty only of poor judgment rather than negligent disregard for security procedures.

 

Americans spend far too much time electing their political leaders and those leaders spend too much time campaigning for re-election or running for higher office. A newly-elected president may spend nearly half his term in campaign mode which is bound to be a distraction from the duties of the office. A single six-year term would make so much more sense. A lengthy campaign season may be great for the media because campaigns are a constant source of news but for officeholders it can be a major distraction from what they were elected to do.

 

President Donald Trump will probably spend much of the remainder of his term running for re-election. Seven of the Democrat candidates, so far, are members of Congress. They will probably devote more time and energy to their election campaigns than to their congressional duties. This doesn’t seem like a very good deal for their constituents who, presumably, elected them to represent their district or state, not to travel around the country stomping for higher office.

 

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress can also be expected to devote a substantial amount of time in investigating the president and seeking to remove him from office by the impeachment process. Many of the newly-elected House members appear to actually believe that they were elected primarily for that purpose. At the same time they will be pre-occupied with attempting to stop the president from obtaining additional border barrier funds. They also eagerly await the results of the nearly two-year-old Mueller investigation, hoping that it will provide fuel for their impeachment campaign against the president.

 

All of this is a sorry commentary on the state of politics in America today and a large part of why Congress is held in such low regard. Opposition to an incumbent president they despise does not constitute a valid agenda for governing and it is a huge disservice to the nation and to the people and regions they represent when there are so many urgent challenges that need addressing like, for example, the drug epidemic, homelessness, a crumbling infrastructure, the need for immigration policy reform and, yes, border security, to mention only the domestic challenges. So with so much real work in Washington to do in addressing real problems, why do we tolerate our elected officeholders spending so much time, effort and resources on politics?

 

One of the answers to that question, I’m afraid, is that much of the public finds it entertaining. The media helps promote that aspect by devoting so much time to it because it’s good for viewership and readership. It sells news. Voters expect to be entertained and excited by the candidates. Being considered boring or wooden is a kiss of death for a candidate. Given the antics and behavior of some candidates, we could use a little more boring, if that’s what decorum is considered to be. The 2016 GOP campaign featured seventeen candidates for the nomination engaging in angry, sometimes brutal, debate and name-calling that was rich in entertainment value put poor in substance. Donald Trump, being by far the most entertaining of the bunch, was the last man standing in a survival contest in spite of zero experience in government. It demonstrated the American public’s infatuation with TV celebrities and disregard for mature judgment, experience and other less-superficial attributes.

 

The Democrat campaign for the 2020 nomination promises to be much the same. Too many candidates will battle each other for too long, this time over who can offer the voters more freebies and entitlements. None will have a clue as to how to pay for them except to raise taxes and soak the rich who already pay most of the taxes. The last candidate standing will be the one that promises the most, has the cleverest one-liners, is the most entertaining, and is long on charisma, appearance and other superficial, over-rated features. Why not just try to find the best-qualified candidate for the world’s most important job?

March 3, 2019