Well, we are on our way back to Los Angeles from Chicago, so the next posting here won't be for a while, though with the two-hour time difference saving, it will likely be in late afternoon, so all will be well. And if it's not until early early...well, all will still be well.
And no, this isn't an effort to shovel out of the snow and quickly get back to warm weather. I liked that it snowed, and it's beautiful. Although you still do want Spring to show up. This was a planned flight, and I have the records to prove it...
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"The president should get over it. Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President..."
-- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on CNN'S State of the Union Oh, God, where to begin. Actually, the best place to begin is to go even deeper and post the entire quote from John McCain during his interview. "The president should get over it. Get over your temper tantrum, Mr. President, it's time that we work together with our Israeli friends and try to stem this tide of ISIS and Iranian movement throughout the region, which is threatening the very fabric of the region. The least of your problems is what Bibi Netanyahu said during an election campaign." Oh, God, where to begin. First of all, if the statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu warning about "Arab voters" had come from a political leader who John McCain disliked, he'd be ranting right now until he was blue in the face if President Obama had been silent. What Mr. McCain has seemingly never learned is that when you're president you have to be able to criticize your friends as well as your enemies. Actually, that's a lesson Mr. McCain should have learned in the first grade. Second, while Mr. McCain is chastising President Obama for criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu for what the Israeli Prime Minister said...even Mr. Netanyahu himself has been making several attempts to step back from what he said!! It seems that John McCain may be the only person in a position of authority who thinks it was all right what was said. Which might explain why John McCain isn't in a bigger position of authority. Third, the irony is so thick that you need a machete to cut through it, since it's President Obama who is trying to stop the the Iranian movement by negotiating a settlement with Iran -- which Mr. McCain's party had a snit fit and sent a whining temper tantrum letter to Iran, which most newspapers throughout the country (including conservatives ones) slammed the Republican politicians over. Republican politicians who include John McCain. Fourth, John McCain more than almost any politician in Congress is widely known for his own temper tantrums, and tantrums SO volatile that when he was running for the GOP nomination for president, even his fellow Republican Senators behind the scenes were whispering whether he had the temperament for the job. And let us not forget his pissy "That one" rant about Barack Obama during one of their presidential debates, "during an election campaign" (o, again, the irony...) a melt-down mild by most high politics standards, but enough on such a major platform "during an election campaign" that it helped confirm the worst suspicions about John McCain's own proclivities. And fifth, Mr. Mcain's whining statement is so head-exploding that you want to sit him down like a petulant child and then send him to the corner for a Time Out and make clear that it's time he himself stop having a temper tantrum after six years and accept that he LOST to "That One," and is therefore not President of the United States, and that he should finally "get over it." It was a lovely Spring day in Chicago. Last week it hit a balmy 60 degrees as the season began to move off of Winter. Opening Day of the baseball season is just around the corner, less than a mere two weeks away on April 5. I look my morning constitutional, and some of it was even outdoors; And the elves back at the homestead are all laughing. Yes, this is Chicago on Monday morning, March 23. That's three days after the official beginning of Spring. It was 29 degrees when I set out on my early morning walk. By 10:30, the snow was coming down even harder. And yes, the first game of the baseball season will be at Wrigley Field is only 13 days away. I expect to hear Cubs announcer Pat Hughes call out that the runner sleds into second base for a double. Where is Sen.James Inhofe (R-OK) when you really need him? Now's when you'd love to see him on the Senate floor with that snowball, ridiculing the concept of Climate Change... I was pleased to see that President Obama has finally spoken out bluntly about the incredibly-long delay to confirm his nominee for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch. While I understand his reasons for staying outside the fray, not wanting ti impose himself in the Senate debate, at a certain point you have to act. And "a certain point" in this case is 135 days...with no end in sight. "You don't hold attorney general nominees hostage for other issues," the President said. "This is our top law enforcement office."
To be clear, the delay has had nothing to do with the qualifications of Ms. Lynch, who cleared her nomination hearings smoothly and was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee with a bipartisan vote of 12-8. She's been widely acknowledged as being highly qualified for the cabinet post, and without any attachment of personal controversy. The problem is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has refused to bring her name to the Senate floor for a vote. The current issue that has kept Judge Lynch held "hostage" is that the GOP has a attached a rider about abortion to a human trafficking bill, and refuses to vote on her until that bill passes. This follows an earlier attempt by Republicans to withhold the vote by attaching an amendment against President Obama's Executive Order on illegal immigrants. Neither issue of which has anything to do with her qualifications. But the GOP can't even decide on what they want to keep blocking her over. The Senate has the right, of course, to approve nominees. But it has long been the standard of the Senate that a president of either party has the right to put together the Administration he wants, absence some sort of malfeasance by the nominee or lack of qualifications -- none of which not one person in the Senate has even hinted at. For the sake of perspective, the delay in confirmation is longer than the time taken to confirm the last seven Attorney Generals combined. It's the longest delay to confirm an Attorney General since Edwin Meese 30 years ago, but that was because of a five-month investigation into charges of federal misconduct, which in turn required two separate hearings by the Judiciary Committee. There's a special irony about all this delay that almost makes it humorous. Bordering on lunatic. For the past six years, Republicans have been blunt about their guttural hatred of Attorney General Eric Holder. More than almost anything (other than repealing the Affordable Care Act...), they've wanted him out of office. And six months ago -- on Sept. 25, 2014 -- they got their wish, when Mr. Holder announced his resignation. However, at the time, he said he would stay in office until his replacement was confirmed. In other words, the GOP could have had their wish and been "rid" of Mr. Holder almost half a year ago. But because of their refusal to vote on Loretta Lynch -- a person who both parties admire, and acknowledge is hugely qualified, indeed one of the most qualified nominees for Attorney General in recent years, if not ever, Republicans have created a situation for themselves whereby they have forced Eric Holder, who they hate, back on themselves. For half a year, with no end in sight. The dicey additional issue related to all this is the one related to race, since Loretta Lynch would be the first African-American woman to be Attorney General if confirmed. When Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) brought the subject up the other week, Republicans as always complained, And Democrats themselves have been wary of making the charge outright, reticent to take focus off Judge Lynch and her high qualifications. The difficulty with this conundrum is that there is no reason to hold Loretta Lynch hostage on the basis of her qualifications. And if Republicans say it's only about trying to move the president on these other issues (which is irresponsible and shameful of them to do on its own merits, since their job here is solely to confirm or deny a nominee on that person's qualifications), those same "issues' could have been applied to Ash Carter, President Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense. He was nominated long after Ms. Lynch was, and was confirmed almost two months ago. The whole process from nomination to confirmation for Mr. Carter was just two months. And during it all, there wasn't a whisper of holding up his nomination because of a vote on abortion. He sailed through. So, maybe this has nothing about race. But Republicans must know how horrific it looks. Clearly, though, they don't care. Which speaks volumes all on its own. When Republicans won a majority in both the Senate and House, they proudly proclaimed that they would show how smoothly they would run the Congress. Not only has their time in control been more bumpy than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, they can't even get themselves in order to simply vote on a nominee -- and one no less who they consider well-qualified. As the Party of No, being in the minority was a great place to be, an ideal spot for squawking. You're not in charge, you have no responsibility to lead or govern. But now they're in the majority and seemingly terrified to act, flopping around like a flounder on dry land. As the old admonition goes -- Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. We've seen for the last few years how Republicans have wanted to deny the vote to others. Who'd have thought they'd do the same to themselves in the Senate. This week's contestant is Jean Bostrum from Zimmerman, MN. It's a very lovely piece, but I didn't get either part. The guest did guess the hidden song, but even when pianist Bruce Adolph played the number again, I still had a hard time picking it out., except for a few notes. It blends impeccably with a particular melody by the hidden composer But since she got it, obviously it's guessable.
Driving around town today, I figured that this was as good a time as any to post the song, "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago." For reasons unknown to man, this was a sort of hit in 1967. (That it was a sort of hit is not the oddity, it's that it got any airplay at all, most especially in the rock era. Though, strange as it is, it certainly is catchy. In an odd sort of way.) It was performed by Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band, whose lead singer Norman Greenbaum wrote the song and had a respectable career on his own. And no, I did not have eggplant for lunch today, so I'm not exactly sure what got me thinking about this song, though there's a limit to how many times in a row you can sing, "My Kind of Town" or "Chicago," so every once in a while you need a change of pace. This is officially a change of pace. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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