Monday morning you sure look fine…just avoid the lunatic fringe

With another shout out to Fleetwood Mac, let’s start the week with one of their lyrics. If you are a fan, you know the next line is “but Friday I got travelin’ on my mind.” So, until then, we can just look fine.

Speaking of fine, if the former president wants to testify, please, oh please let him. That would be more than fine. When an untruthful person gets on the witness stand, two things happen – perjury risk goes up and changing answers increase. I have shared before, an attorney got the former president to change 30 answers to avoid perjuring himself in one sworn deposition.

Speaking of fine, I keep reading how even MAGA fans are getting tired of the antics of some of the elected “lunatic fringe” in their party. At some point, these folks wear out their welcome even with other more strident folks. I hate using labels, but to me the lunatic fringe represents the negative tail of a statistical distribution. In a normal distribution, the negative tail could be 2 1/2% of the group using two standard deviations.

In the context I am referencing, the Republican Party is not a normal distribution as the former president has pulled more negativity into the mix making his views more mainstream, So, the lunatic fringe is a little larger. Democrats have their fringe as well, but I do not see it as large as the Republican one.

“Lunatic fringe” is also a cool song from Red Rider. Just a few lyrics will reveal how prescient this song is:

“Lunatic fringe
In the twilight’s last gleaming
This is open season
But you won’t get too far

‘Cause you’ve got to blame someone
For your own confusion
We’re on guard this time (on guard this time)
Against your final solution
Oh no.”

So, we must be on guard. Push back on people who are espousing nonsense. We know their names. And, we should also push back on those who believe the BS these folks are espousing. We won’t really be fine until we do.

Tick, tick, tick…one more Republican Congressperson resigns

An article called “Republican House majority to shrink as Mike Gallagher steps down” by Martin Pengelly in The Guardian tells a continuing saga. The subtitle adds some flavor –  “Congressman once considered a rising Republican star to leave in April, further weakening party’s slim majority.” A few initial paragraphs paint enough of the picture.

“The Republican majority in the US House of Representatives is set to dwindle further with the early exit of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, once a rising star of the party. A former US Marine who twice deployed to Iraq, Gallagher, 40, is a relatively moderate voice in party at the mercy of the far right.

He had already announced his decision to retire but in a statement on Friday he said: ‘After conversations with my family, I have made the decision to resign my position … effective 19 April. I’ve worked closely with House Republican leadership on this timeline.’

The announcement came shortly after Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, an extremist even in a party held hostage by its far right, responded to the passage of a Democrat-backed funding bill by filing a motion to remove Mike Johnson, the speaker from Louisiana.

Allies said Gallagher was pushed to the exit by such behaviour, according to Politico, particularly the right’s ejection of Johnson’s predecessor as speaker, Kevin McCarthy, last October.

Friday was also the last day in Congress for Ken Buck of Colorado, a rightwinger nonetheless disillusioned by intra-party chaos who also chose to bring forward his intended retirement.”

Tick, tick, tick. As the clock pendulum swings turning its hands, a slow exodus of Republicans continues. The main cause is the inmates are running the asylum. After Kevin McCarthy ceded power to the more strident Freedom Caucus to become Speaker, he sealed the fate on his eventual departure. Now, Mike Johnson may face the same fate.

The Freedom Caucus has been a thorn in the side of more than a couple of Republican Speakers. Their difficulty may have contributed to the retirement of Speaker John Boehner and departure of Speaker Paul Ryan who were more effective speakers than Messers. McCarthy and Johnson. Boehner made more than one reference to herding cats and, on more important votes, went across the aisle for support.

Collaboration has become a dirty word, especially with the strident members of the party, many of whom are in the Freedom Caucus. Yet, their numbers have grown, which is sad. On John Oliver’s “Last week tonight” show this past Sunday, he noted the House Republicans canceled an offsite team building exercise when only 100 of the 218 members said they would attend.

Tick, tick, tick. Whether one sides with the strident or moderate sides of the party, one thing is for certain, you can’t govern if you are not there. And, as an increasing number of Republicans depart, fewer are there.

Another of the better Republicans will be leaving Congress

Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who was first elected in 2004, said that she came to the decision to leave public office “after much prayer and reflection.”

Rep. McMorris Rodgers has long been one of the more reasoned and diligent voices in Congress, especially the current Republican caucus. She often was involved in energy matters as a result of her capabilities and interests.

Sadly, the better voices in the GOP are leaving Congress. Last year Representative Patrick McHenry, who was temporary Speaker chose to not run again. McHenry was temporary Speaker after Kevin McCarthy was voted out and Mike Johnson was voted in after an unfortunate infatuation by too many for Representative Jim Jordan.

McHenry and McMorris Rodgers have far more veracity than any of these three Speakers or Speaker candidates. Yet, they would not stand a chance to become Speaker with some of the very strident voices in the House.

Of course, other courageous truth tellers in the Republican caucus left or lost elections. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger would fall in this group. To show examples of what is valued by the party by too many are Rep. Matt Gaetz who submitted legislation to exonerate Donald Trump for his role in the seditious insurrection and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who said Joe Biden’s inauguration was an insurrection. Really?

We need serious minded people in Congress. I called McHenry and McMorris Rodgers to thank them for their service. I don’t agree with them on various policies, but applaud their efforts. I also called Gaetz and Taylor Greene and shared my disappointment in their comments. I emphasized the need for a serious minded focus. These last two are not included in the mix.

Just a few words to save you and me some sanity

I have written before my browser feed seems to be like a gossip column with the he said/ she said stuff that goes on as news. Rather than spend time on issues, we spend far too much time on things of little consequence. The reporters share some culpability, but the political and entertainment news makers share most of the blame.

So, here are a few rules of the road to help both your and my sanity.

• If a politician is adding little or no value with his or her comments, ignore him or her. I see so much BS being spewed out of the mouths of elected officials, it is embarrassing. Names like McCarthy, Trump, Cruz, Cuomo, Gohmert, Gaetz, Greene, Graham, Johnson, et all are having a very hard time uttering truthful comments. Ignore them if they cannot add value. Just because their followers may believe their BS, does not mean we have to.
• Ignore the comments that come from entertainment hosts disguised as news people. Fox defended in court one of its nighttime hosts saying he was not a news person, but an entertainer. So, Fox argued successfully his comments should not be considered news and are not subject to defamation scrutiny. This is the “no one should take what he says seriously argument,” which is hypocritical because that is why the person is on the air. Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, O’Donnell et al are entertainers. And, the truth is not a consistent guest on the shows of too many.
• With that said, we should not knock too many entertainers, as some comedians have reported news far more accurately than some news sources. But John Oliver, Trevor Noah and Jon Stewart never claimed to be news people. Yet, each have received acclaim for the veracity of their news reporting used in their comedy shows. The work they did on tele-evangelists, property seizure, voter id laws, punitive court costs, beauty pageants, conspiracy parrots, etc. were excellent.
• Truth. We need this more than ever. Yet, too many have devalued its use. When the truth is deemed superfluous, the lies flow even more. And, organizations and followers take on the personality of their leader. The head of the Republican party is known as a very untruthful person. So, it is not a surprise conservative pundit David Brooks said a week ago, “To be a leader in the Republican Party means you have to lie.” This does not give a hall pass to Democrats, as they need to be as truthful as possible. The lying is far more prevalent on the right, but it is not absent on the left.

That is enough for now. Seek out the truth tellers. Ask questions and listen to the answers. But, it is more than OK to ignore those who are not only not in the ballpark, but are not in the same city as the truth.