Nancy Pelosi: Tiger Speaker

By Calvin Hill

The Republicans tried everything. They tried fear. They tried to convince Republican and Independent voters that Nancy Pelosi was the “boogiewoman.” That didn’t stop her. She continued to raise and dole out tons of money to Democratic prospects. They even tried going to their standard political categorical playbook – we don’t want “a San Francisco liberal” to be the Speaker of the House. What they didn’t count on is what comes with Nancy’s San Francisco liberal bonafides is the infamous catch phrase of the late Al Davis, her neighboring owner of the bad boy Oakland Raiders, “Just win, baby!”

The Republican leadership and their propaganda machine at Fox News Channel, primetime, and talk radio, all the time, had convinced several Democratic Party candidates to openly declare that they would not vote for Pelosi for Speaker should the Democrats win back the House. Unfettered by what many would consider a betrayal , Nancy persisted, “Just win, baby!” She was not about to take the bait and fight a battle not on the schedule. The GOP continued their assaults and vilification of her – nevertheless, she persisted. “Just win, baby!”

There’s a reason that Republicans threw the kitchen sink at Pelosi, not Chuck Schumer. While President Trump has admittedly exercised his manhood via sexual assaults and harassment, the GOP is terrified of Pelosi’s ability to, metaphorically, grab men by their testicles until they cry, “Auntie.” They were no match for her talent at keeping her caucus focused on the agenda, one squeeze at a time, when necessary. Beneath her sweet smile and soft spoken voice is the fierce determination that would make the so-called tiger moms look like complacent, unfit parents. Nancy relates. And that terrifies Republicans.

Knowing that it was detrimental to her leadership and the Democratic majority, Pelosi held fast the Obama coalition, knowing that it was the unfairness of the color of his skin that prompted much of the opposition to his presidency, the Democrats’ agenda, and the many false narratives surrounding America’s first black president. Even through the debacle of Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” Pelosi held the Democrats firm while the intransigent Republicans refused to compromise on repairing the very plan that came out of one of their own conservative think tanks and had been instituted in Massachusetts by a Republican governor.

Nancy Pelosi is tough and unafraid. And a tough woman can scare the prospects of domineering men. It is why Vladimir Putin, in his quest to destroy the NATO alliance and make Russia economically relevant in the world decided to target Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel – two women for whom he is no match on the international stage and whose leadership worries him more than that of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell. And with John McCain gone, Joe Lieberman retired and Lindsey Graham’s transformation to becoming the Kanye West of the GOP, Putin’s opposition in the Republican Party is virtually non-existent. However, the Democrats, and the country, now have the prospective Speaker of the House, Tiger Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. She will be sure to keep the Democratic majority walking, running and chewing gum at the same time without losing focus. Under Pelosi, loudmouths will not be allowed to overrun Democratic committees as political hacks, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Mike McCarthy and Devin Nunes were allowed to do under the weak, feckless Paul Ryan. Americans can look forward to truth and substance to replace right wing hype and spin.

The gender gap that appeared in the polls and at the voting booths are now in the House of Representatives. It will be of great interest to see how the present Republican silence will react to the misogynist and racist dog whistles emanating from Trump’s White House bullhorn now that a large swath of diverse women will be there to have Nancy’s back. Her public instinct was correct when she went all in with Obama on healthcare and the GOP failed to repeal it because Americans had her back, and that’s what the Republicans fear. Come January 2019, Helen Reddy’s worldwide feminist anthem will be wholly insufficient, because Nancy Pelosi is not just woman – she is tigress, hear her roar.

Nationalism: When Truth Isn’t Truth

By Calvin Hill

We should have seen this coming. We often hear that history repeats itself, yet we continue to ignore the warning signs. After President Bill Clinton cast her public service and political career aside for the sake of his personal convenience, Lani Guinier, in her eye opening treatise, LIFT EVERY VOICE, warned us that African Americans in this country are the canaries in the coal mine – that whatever society and the government inflicts upon them, will eventually be inflicted upon all.

The callous murders of innocent Americans at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the attempted murders of former American presidents, a former Secretary of State, and several members of Congress are easily categorized as the work(s) of a “nut job.” This was also said when Dylan Storm Roof walked into Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina and committed mass murder. However, history lays waste to this very convenient argument.

These murderers and attempted murderers did not shoot their mothers or barge into a school and kill 20 first graders or a dozen high school students because they forgot to take their meds and repeatedly missed their psychiatry appointments. History tells us that these are the same people who blew up the 16th Street Baptist Church and killed four little girls in Birmingham, Alabama. These are the people who kidnapped, killed and buried Matthew Schwerner. James Cheney and Andrew Goodman in Mississippi. These are the people who sent Mamie Till’s mutilated teenage son back to Chicago to symbolize the fate of those who dared to infringe upon, or even question, their Confederate flag waving way of life. And now, these people have murdered 11 more Americans because they practice the Jewish faith. Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers are not crazy, mentally ill nut jobs. They are not a pair of delusional unfortunates guided by mythical entities and strange voices in their head. Like the aforementioned bombers, killers and followers of der Fuhrer, who marched millions of Jews to their deaths and left their surviving kinfolk branded with marks that none should ever forget, Sayoc and Bowers are not crazy – they are ideological assassins and hate sponsored executioners. And we should have seen this coming.

The signs were all there. Republicans and Conservatives were giddy at his 2008 announcement that Senator Barack Obama would seek the presidency of the United States. The prospect of a primary opponent to weaken Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, garnered initial support – until the Obama message, the Obama crowds, the Obama speeches and the diversity of the Obama coalition became a perceived threat to the advancement of the GOP ideology. Suddenly, in the eyes of conservatives, the Illinois Senator became a Muslim subversive aligned with Arab terrorists bent on destroying America because, they claimed, the Hawaiian born Obama was really born in Africa. When that didn’t work and Obama had taken the oath of office, that became a bridge too far. Republicans vowed to block any and all Obama proposals, which led to the rise of the Tea Party and its numerous national rallies depicting President Obama, in effigy, as all manner of apian animals.

Fast forward to today, Republican campaign events have become a dastardly version of Tea Party 2.0 featuring a freewheeling Donald Trump who can never seem to utter the term anti-Semitism unless it is un-fundamentally read from a Teleprompter. His proficiency with the Teleprompter, or lack thereof, would have had any one of my elementary school teachers recommend that Trump’s parents hire a reading tutor. With his left hand, Trump points his followers, at these rallies, toward the southern border and convinces them that immigrants and immigration will destroy America and their American opportunities. Meanwhile, his right hand has been silently and secretly camouflaging his welcoming hand to those very low paid immigrants with whom he staffs Mar-a-Lago and the Trump golf courses.

Thus, the scion of Fred Trump, the father who was arrested in support of a Klan rally and teacher of housing discrimination to his children, will often abandon prepared remarks to highlight the eminent standing of neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, as very fine people, even after one of them insulted Trump’s Jewish daughter and son-in-law whom, by the way, Trump failed to defend. Having probably never heard of the term “globalist” before he met Steve Bannon, this president declares himself a “nationalist,” likely unaware of the historical implications even after Bannon has been telling nationalists to wear their charges of being racist like a badge of honor.

The Republican Party and its leadership, who have bowed down and surrendered their authority to Donald Trump, have remained silent in the acceptance of his demagoguery and mendacity. Apparently, the GOP has concluded that if their acquiescence will help ignore the deaths of thousands of American hurricane victims, and send millions of sick, bankrupted, children and elderly to soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and subject college students to perpetual debt, and accelerate the removal of the basic rights of workers in the marketplace and their right to vote, it will all have been worth it for them to witness the president’s blatant disregard for the truth, his demolition of our allied forces, his disgraceful description of Haiti and countries in Africa, his demonization of the First Amendment, his destruction of the meaning carved in the Statue of Liberty, and his total degradation of those truths we hold to be self evident.