The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert that God spake to them; and whether they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answer'd: "I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then perswaded & remain confirm'd, that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences, but wrote." —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Happy new year from the far left coast!
I got a little emotional watching Judy Woodruff sign off as PBS NewsHour anchor Friday evening. Words like iconic and legendary come to mind. So do grace, class, and dignity.
Woodruff is leaving the anchor desk she occupied since 2013 but not the NewsHour, where she will continue as a correspondent. Her upcoming project for 2023 and 2024 is "Judy Woodruff Presents: America at a Crossroad." Something to look forward to.
Memo from the politics and current affairs desk.
Should Ocasio-Cortez be judged by the same standard as Manchin and Sinema?
Last week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined the overwhelming majority of House Republicans when she voted to shut down the government. Ocasio-Cortez's squad comrade Rashida Tlaib voted present by proxy. The remainder of the Democratic caucus voted to fund the government. Roll Call 549 | Bill Number: H. R. 2617:
Democratic: Yeas 216; Nays 1; Present 1
Republican: Yeas 9; Nays: 200; Present: 0; Not Voting: 4
Ocasio-Cortez paints her vote as principled opposition to portions of the bill she finds objectionable: increased spending for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security, and the defense budget. Yes, the vote was performative, posturing for political purposes. Presumably she was confident the bill had the votes to pass without her. A vote not to fund the government is still a vote to shut it down.
No particular gift of imagination is required to hear the yowling outrage that would have greeted a nay vote from Manchin or Sinema. Sinema actually introduced an amendment to break a partisan logjam that threatened passage of the omnibus bill in the Senate. Credit where credit is due. She got it right this time: "Enough is enough. Stop using the border as a political tool. We are here to do our job. We must fund the government and we must solve our border crisis," she said on the Senate floor (Alexander Bolton, Senate passes $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package, The Hill, December 22, 2022).
Ocasio-Cortez could have accomplished just as much by voting for bill while laying out her objections and proposals for addressing her concerns without aiding and abetting a Republican minority eager to use the threat of a government shutdown, and failure to raise to debt ceiling when the time comes, to impose their will on the majority. She should be held to the same standard as Sinema and Manchin when they go rogue.
At the beginning of the war when Volodymyr Zelensky was asked to evacuate Kyiv, he reportedly responded, "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride" (Glenn Kessler, Zelensky’s famous quote of 'need ammo, not a ride' not easily confirmed, The Washington Post, March 6, 2022). Last week when Zelensky addressed Congress, Senator Josh Hawley declined to attend, saying that he did not want to be part of a photo op. The honorable, a term used loosely in this context, senator from Missouri has not always been so averse to photo ops. Most memorable was his clenched fist salute to incite the mob at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, followed by his ignominious evacuation sprint for safety when the mob did precisely what he had encouraged them to do. SB Nation calculated "Crazy Legs" Hawley's sprint time for 40 yards at 7.2 seconds (James Dator, Josh Hawley ran 7.2 in the 40 at the January 6 combine).
Meantime, Russia is experiencing an epidemic of sudden Russian death syndrome.
Here is a list of people you should not currently want to be: a Russian sausage tycoon, a Russian gas-industry executive, the editor in chief of a Russian tabloid, a Russian shipyard director, the head of a Russian ski resort, a Russian aviation official, or a Russian rail magnate. Anyone answering to such a description probably ought not stand near open windows, in almost any country, on almost every continent.
Over the weekend, Pavel Antov, the aforementioned sausage executive, a man who had reportedly expressed a dangerous lack of enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, was found dead at a hotel in India, just two days after one of his Russian travel companions died at the same hotel. Antov was reported to have fallen to his death from a hotel window. The meat millionaire and his also-deceased friend are the most recent additions to a macabre list of people who have succumbed to Sudden Russian Death Syndrome, a phenomenon that has claimed the lives of a flabbergastingly large number of businessmen, bureaucrats, oligarchs, and journalists. (Elaine Godfrey, Sudden Russian Death Syndrome, The Atlantic, December 29, 2022)
Herschel Walker. George Santos (Azi Paybarah, Camilla DeChalus, The talented Mr. Santos: A congressman-elect’s unraveling web of deception, The Washington Post, December 31, 2022). Where do Republicans find these nimrods? Ocasio-Cortez and the squad are paragons of virtue, integrity, and intellectual rigor next to these guys, Marge Taylor Greene, Boebert, Crazy Legs, and the rest of their pack.
New blog posts:
Year's End 2022: Looking Back, Taking Stock, Bumbling Onward, Ha! December 29, 2022. As the year gallops to a close it is time once again to take a deep breath and reflect on what I been up to, where it has taken me, and plans, prospects, hopes for bumbling onward…read more>>
Keep the faith.
Stand with Ukraine.
yr obdt svt
Pictured below: Holiday Central 2022
