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mcar

(42,206 posts)
Thu Jan 3, 2019, 09:39 PM Jan 2019

Pierce: The House of Representatives Is Different Now. The Future Is in It.

Now I'm crying all over again.

The House of Representatives Is Different Now. The Future Is in It.
As of January 3, 2018, our representative democracy looks a lot more representative.

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
JAN 3, 2019

WASHINGTON—On the day on which the House of Representatives changed hands, and on a day on which the halls of the Congress were alive with the various sounds of children of all ages, including the adult ones, the most remarkable thing I saw was a thick wooden table in a room named after the late Sam Rayburn, who was the last Speaker of the House to lose the job and get it back again.

On the table were an assortment of books. There were no less than seven versions of the Bible, from the Catholic Douay version, to the Eastern Orthodox, to an assortment of King James editions, to the African-American Heritage Bible. There were two copies of the Tanakh. There was a Qu'ran. There was a Hindu Veda and a Buddhist Sura. There were two copies of the United States Constitution. If you were a member of the House waiting to take your constitutionally mandated oath, this table had you covered. It was a sacred-secular smorgasbord....

All of these new members of the House, it needn't be said, were members of the Democratic Party. So was virtually every person of color in the chamber. On the other side of the hall was a largely monochromatic new Republican minority that channelled its foul mood through the person of Congresswoman Liz Cheney, child of the Undead, who spit up a bitter, Trumpian nominating speech on behalf of Republican leader Kevin McCarthy's candidacy for the speakership. She even went to "build that wall," which got her a hoot and a holler from her fellow Republicans, but which was drowned out by the sound of happy children and grandchildren from the other side of the aisle. It was as though someone had grafted a Chuck E. Cheese onto a funeral parlor....

Nancy Pelosi, because she is smarter than everyone in the House, and much smarter than anyone in the White House, god knows, was re-elected easily to be the new Speaker, although the balloting was not devoid of hilarity. Pelosi and McCarthy were the only two announced candidates, but votes also were cast for Reps. Jim Jordan, Cheri Bustos, and Marcia Fudge, as well as for Senator Tammy Duckworth, defeated Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and former Vice President Joe Biden....

It is a different place now, this House of Representatives. There is something of the future in it, and god alone knows where it will lead, but the work, the real work, begins now.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25741133/democratic-house-sworn-in-nancy-pelosi-ayanna-pressley/

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Pierce: The House of Representatives Is Different Now. The Future Is in It. (Original Post) mcar Jan 2019 OP
tell it, Charlie! Hermit-The-Prog Jan 2019 #1
That's right! mcar Jan 2019 #2
I am so tired of lock-step clones Hermit-The-Prog Jan 2019 #3
Great article dalton99a Jan 2019 #4
K&R 2naSalit Jan 2019 #5
KnR Hekate Jan 2019 #6
Morning Kick! mcar Jan 2019 #7

Hermit-The-Prog

(33,021 posts)
1. tell it, Charlie!
Thu Jan 3, 2019, 11:17 PM
Jan 2019

It's the House of Representatives, again. It's not a subsidiary of the Fox and Friends clone factory.

Hermit-The-Prog

(33,021 posts)
3. I am so tired of lock-step clones
Fri Jan 4, 2019, 12:22 AM
Jan 2019

It's refreshing to see arguments among Democrats -- it proves they're human and representing something beyond the agenda of Murdoch, Mercers, et. al.

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