The House Democratic leadership is getting up in years. Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn are both seventy-seven years old. Steny Hoyer is seventy-eight. And they’ve been in their leadership positions for quite a while now, which makes it understandable that some ambitious folks lower down are getting a little restless. I’m not sure the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Linda T. Sánchez of California, was really trying to say a whole lot more than that when she went on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program today and said it was time for the leadership to “pass the torch” to a younger generation.
It’s at least implied in her comments, though, that a younger generation could do a better job. And I can see all kinds of ways that that might be true. But you still have to show me something concrete. Setting Hoyer and Clyburn aside, what is Pelosi doing wrong that someone younger would correct?
I hear that Pelosi is unpopular and a drag on Democratic candidates in a lot of districts around the country. That is probably true, but more so for how she is demonized and caricatured than for any errors she’s actually made. In her actual job, she’s been remarkably effective in nearly every facet of the job. She was a brilliant speaker, and she’s kept her caucus well-funded and very united, even in the opposition where she is severely limited in what she can accomplish. Maybe she could have done a better job protecting vulnerable incumbents, but her main job was to get them to vote for President Obama’s agenda. Maybe she could have hired better people to do recruitment, but that’s a delegation of responsibility. Overall, she’s been formidable and the equal of any congressional leader I can think of in recent American history.
And what makes people think that a replacement won’t quickly become the victim of Republican demonization and distortion?
If she seems out of touch with the young kids, please tell me how. I haven’t noticed it.
I definitely pine for fresh leadership and ideas from the party, but not in a vacuum. If there’s a leader as capable as Pelosi on deck, show me who this person is. I don’t see them.
And what makes people think that a replacement won’t quickly become the victim of Republican demonization and distortion
Nothing of course they will
I like Nancy Smash! and I hope she stays around as long as she can. Age may be a factor, so I assume she won’t stay if she feels compromised. Age is one thing, but experience is quite another, and she knows her way around.
Until we get decent replacements, let’s keep her, providing she wants to stay and is capable of doing her job.
Let Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren choose.
(Never happen. Not as long as the Pelosi/Schumer/Clinton wing is still breathing and in power.)
AG
let senators choose the Speaker of the House?
stick to jazz, Arthur.
Led the real party leaders choose. The real ones, the ones who are attempting to be real Democrats. The leaders do anyway…why let the house leaders choose themselves until they sink the whole goddamned boat!!!???
AG
This advice, offered by a real Libertarian and Ron Paul evangelist.
You’re an avowed enemy of our movement. Your advice is best ignored by those who want liberal policies.
Please, tell us again how Cliven Bundy is right, damnit. Or regale us with your pitches for voter ID laws and against unemployment insurance again.
entry for “gadfly”.
That’s really all he is/does here. A waste of time and pixels.
I am sure that having Senators pick the Speaker of the House will be real popular among Dem House members. House of Congress gets as much (or more) loyalty than party, especially for those who maintain social lives with their colleagues. Ideological excommunication has really hurt the operation of the House as a whole.
The caucus is the appropriate ones to vote because they live day to day with the consequences of that vote and their prospects for re-election hinge on the quality of that vote.
I want Pelosi to retire the day after Hoyer does. I’d rather have leadership that’s not more than a decade past normal retirement, but Hoyer would replace her, is just as old, and is considerably less desirably politically.
Can a candidate prove she’s capable before taking the position?
Why can’t you see any who might fit the bill? We have 190 lackluster House members?
Capable a must or we end up the democratic version of Ryan.
The House has always been full of locally-electable, semi-charismatic, non-entities, with a few high profile stars.
Like, say, Grayson, and Weiner.
Yes, but it reminds me of saying, “None of these TV stars can open a movie!”
No, not until they’re movie stars. And some of them might never become movie stars. (And some movie stars can’t open a movie.) But I’m not sure there’s any way to know who is a ‘movie star’ until you give them a leading role.
Yes and that was the great tragedy of James A. Garfield, the only President ever elected who was just a Congressman. He was a reformer and a progressive for his time but didn’t get a chance to do much before being assassinated.
Pelosi was a capable Speaker from 2007 until she had to give up the gavel in Jan 2011. House Democratic caucus was reasonably disciplined and passed bills with a great deal of efficiency. She’s been a capable Minority Leader thus far. She’g going to be demonized by the right-wing (from the Koch Bros types to the far loonier) simply because she happens to be the one holding that position. We would expect anyone with the same title to become the new Big Bad in the wingnut narrative – and also among the moonbats as well (after all, purity ponies will be denied to those precious snowflakes).
Pelosi’s solid. However, her retirement is inevitable – if not in the next couple years then soon thereafter. Who is being groomed as a successor. Is there a bench of capable successors who can do the job she’s done while enduring the inevitable character attacks that will be lobbed at them?
You write:
Yeah.
Right.
But…what bills, and at what level of efficiency did they do anything other than consolidate power in the Big Corp/Big Gov neighborhoods?
Machine politics is for machines.
AG
“What bills?”
The ACA for starters.
Count all the Dem defections on the ACA repeal bill that started in the House…
Count all the Dem defections on the ACA repeal bills that began in the Senate…
Clearly new leadership is needed.
Yep. Precisely what I was thinking.
Something called the Wikipedia has a list of major legislation accomplished by the 111th Congress, which had Democratic majorities in both chambers, plus Obama as President. A quick check of the links will give you an idea of what was introduced by the House. Obviously there was more legislation than just that. Back in those days, Daily Kos was offering regular updates of what the House had passed. The Senate tended to be a bit more problematic, but somehow that particular session quite a bit came together. Contra the various wingnut and moonbat narratives, quite a lot of that major legislation was aimed at making life better for us regular working stiffs. I look at the evidence and find much to like about what transpired that session. For some, it will never be good enough. One can only hope they would just stay trapped in their own little echo chambers where they would do the least damage. No such luck.
Were the commanding heights of the economy in finance, production, distribution and transportation seized in the name of the workers?
No.
I rest my case.
Thank you, Comrade, for setting me straight. Are we doing straight-up Marxism-Leninism or Maoism? Just trying to figure if I need to add a self-criticism session to my work calendar. 😉
Maybe she could have hired better people to do recruitment, but that’s a delegation of responsibility.
So, she’s delegated very badly. That’s on her. What good is being well funded if the Democrats are no closer to being back in the House majority? She’s done a very poor job for 3 cycles in a row re: picking who heads the DCCC. Will you call for her ouster if the Democrats fail to win back the House next year?
Precisely.
Thank you, Phil.
AG
None of the usual SUPERGENIUSES here could name one replacement for Pelosi? Not one. Really shoudn’t be calling for her head if you don’t have someone in mind for the job. And L, o, to the motherfucking L the “let Bernie and Warren pick.”
You think that idea is funny? While you are presently getting your asses thoroughly kicked by playing by the…already well discredited by the results…so-called “rules???!!!”
Wake the fuck up.
AG
The idea is idiotic for the reasons tarheel lays out above, and I’m pretty sure Sanders and Warren have enough to worry about in their own chamber.
Who are these “real” democrats of which you speak? Names, or they don’t exist.
Lol “wtfu”
They do not exist as far as the controllers of the DNC are concerned.
Who are they?
Contemporary inheritors of FDR’s New Deal.
You really don’t understand this?
Unbelievable.
Or…maybe not so unbelievable, given the makeup of the DemRat Party and those here who support it as it now stands.
WTFU.
AG
So you can’t name anybody? Not one member of the house caucus who can replace Pelosi, yet you want Pelosi gone. And you’re telling me to “wake the fuck up?”
You’re getting in the way of the narrative: anyone named as a worthy successor to Pelosi would not be “good enough” because for whatever random reasons that can be conjured up at any given point in the middle of a diatribe the Democratic caucus in the House will, by definition, never be “good enough.” The definition of who or what would constitute “good enough” itself is one of those shifting goalpost thingies that the more moonbattish of our denizens will keep secret from the rest of us for, um….reasons, or emotions, or who the fuck knows anymore.
It’s funny because of how amazingly stupid it is.
Whose is Pelosi’s protege?
A shallow bench is a huge vulnerability. And absence of a default succession is the set-up to a donnybrook when she does leave the Congress. Same for Clyburn and Hoyer. Same on the Senate side.
Is Sanchez getting antsy for the music to play on the musical chairs once again?
The current stalemate is made for a Gingrich-type character to force a transition and then showboat in an attempt to swing the House. Might even be a few ambitious candidates in red districts tired to the clog-up of Republican opportunities for advancement who will seek the donkey flag and then try to take the leadership.
Like I said, a huge vulnerability.
Some day the dam will break.
A real leader in democratic institutions is responsible for seeing that a wide and deep bench is built. House leaders have never been much good at that as they cling to power and at best include the mediocre and most loyal in their inner circle. (At worse subvert/destroy any potential and viable contenders.) Was somewhat less harmful in the past because more of them dropped dead by the age of seventy.
Tough to build a strong bench when the actual bench they would sit on keeps getting smaller, as with all the seats the Dems have lost to the Rs since 2008, due in no small part to the DCCC and other leadership preferring mushy centrist/moderate/corporatist Dems. And accordingly, D gains in the House in 2016 were disappointingly small.
So as a reward for all that success, Pelosi re-appoints the same guy to head the DCCC, who in turn re-appoints a committee leadership team, including head of candidate recruitment which is largely the same group of people.
Somehow, it doesn’t make me hopeful for positive results in 2018.
Don’t know about Pelosi (only because there’s only no better or worse in the warm-up box), but Schumer has apparently decided to take a dive in AL.
(Duncan is in top form today, but not more than a few people here can appreciate it.)
Lovable Uncle Joe Is So Stupid
Stupid is whoever sent stupid to AL. Gives the AL GOP a nice opening to nationalize the election and stick Doug in the Obama pile.
Doug should have kept flying under the radar and he’d have a better shot. It would have been the same issue if he had campaigned with Bernie though.
Agree, if what you meant by “flying under the radar” was not having out-of-state (DC) Democrats and associated VIPs on the stump with or for him. Keep it as local as possible — but that doesn’t mean that they should make use of anyone that’s highly regarded in certain communities but doesn’t ruffle the feathers of regressives to energize those communities. He needs the newly elected Mayor of Birmingham out there for him.
. . . can appreciate it.”
<self-censors appropriate response to that typical condescension only by superhuman exertion>
Go read Duncan’s entries. I have, you know, been subjected to a lot of grief here whenever I make similar (and often much milder) critiques. Of course, I didn’t factor in that perhaps some won’t find the same thing as unpalatable when it comes from an “expert,” a status that Duncan rejects for himself and others.
That’s the point.
Reflect on why atrios gets the response he gets, while you get the response you get. (Hint: see first reply above.)
Hmmmm.
What’s to reflect upon when Atrios gets the same response from some people that I get? The only difference is that I get it from an identifiable majority here.
Since way back to 2002, I’ve hardly ever, if ever, disagreed with Atrios. Even on non-political stuff such as this:
Give it to Updike! claims every annoying middle aged suburban white guy (Updike is horrible, also he’s dead so it’s too late).
Something that I would never have said to one of those Updike fans (and doubt Atrios would either).
See Hint 1.
Hint 3: Compare and contrast “some” versus “majority”. Ponder significance of those divergent outcomes. (Reminder: see Hint 1)
Most people have the good sense to avoid insulting the “…identifiable majority…” of an online community to their faces.
Most people have the good sense to avoid coming to a blog and implying that they enjoy another blogger’s opinions and worldview much more.
Marie3 could spend more time at Eschaton and attempt to control that community by providing 20 of the 732 responses to Duncan’s posts and spare us the imperious and hostile bad faith hot takes she brings here.
I read Eschaton. I don’t go there to write about the superiority of Martin and his BooMan community.
Anyone who “…hardly ever, if ever…” disagrees with a blogger who posts many thousands of posts in a year would be well advised to check themselves.
On the good old days – WaPo
No Joe, it didn’t work. It only meant that you could break bread the with opposition and modern Republicans don’t want you at their table.
Since there seem to have been few nominations to replace Pelosi, I’ll suggest one: my former Member, Adam Schiff, of CD 28 in California (basically the Los Angeles suburban cities of Glendale and Burbank and some points north and south). Schiff is solidly progressive and is doing a great job on the House Intel Committee. He makes a good self-presentation, and he is 20 years younger than Pelosi. He’s been in Congress since 2001 (only two years less than Paul Ryan), which gives him plenty of experience. I’ve never heard a bad word about him or his work. He also has a record as a powerful vote-getter; in 2016 he was re-elected with 78 percent of the vote. Schiff is the kind of person Democrats should have in their leadership.
Whether the rest of the caucus wants him or not?
Obviously if the caucus doesn’t want him in leadership he won’t be there. I was speaking to Mr. Longman’s request to name someone who made sense as a successor to Nancy Pelosi; and from what I know of Schiff, he is a logical candidate.
Well then, let me be the first to offer a bad word about Schiff. He seems rather fanatical and obsessed about finding Russians and Putin behind everything that goes wrong in this country. Isn’t he a lawyer? If so, presumably he learned something about the importance of evidence, good evidence, in law school. Apparently he’s forgotten all those niceties.
I don’t want anyone in Dem leadership who’s been taking point in leading the charge on the bogus Russiagate non scandal. Or who was easily bested in debate by Tucker Carlson.
I would prefer someone as Leader who’s solidly from the Democratic wing of the party and who hasn’t been tainted by this latest witch hunt. I’m sure there are at least a few potentials from the Progressive Caucus who have enough experience in the House, who are presentable and preferably a little more forceful in personality than Pelosi, and who would be interested in the job.
Dude, when will you actually deal with the evidence that’s been presented? You’ve been using the same fucking talking points since day one, and with each day your position is more untenable. Yet you persist.
Dude, “the evidence that’s been presented”?? You mean the just-trust-us bald allegations with no further proof since day one from those always trustworthy intel dudes?
It’s been about a year now, always the same lettuce, pickle, tomato on a sesame seed bun but still no beef.
Well, you’re just wrong here, Brodie.
Yet you persist.
What exactly do you deny happened, exactly? That somehow all the private spy agencies (google, Facebook) and the secret spy agencies (NSA, CIA) are all wrong about Russia’s disinformation campaign? That they were involved, but Trump had nothing to do with it? We have conclusive evidence that Manafort, Page, and Flynn were all involved in some capacity, and they’re all named in that dossier that Mueller is investigating. Give it up. You’re wrong.
Au contraire dudes. And how pathetic is it to see so many Dems, even of the soft mushy centrist types, so easily fall for unsubstantiated intel propaganda. Hint: US Intel agencies are in the business of deception. And hearsay is not evidence. And 3 hand-picked (by the DNI) analysts are hardly going to write a report that substantially dissents from the views of the DNI.
As for Facebook and google, it appears the stupid Russkies expected to spend a whopping $150k, half of that or more after the election, in order to influence the election. Some of that whopping amount going for puppy ads.
But Mark Z-berg had to come up with something — after being pressured by several congressmen to go look again — and was forced to apologize for previously ridiculing the allegations. Not that Congress could have any influence on Zberg’s and google’s business.
I’ve asked this before, I’ll ask it again: What would you consider to be “proof.” Proof that you would accept? If you can’t answer this very basic, simple, question, with a very simple, direct answer, you are just bullshitting.
I’ve answered before, many times: something considerably more than mere unsubstantiated, inherently iffy, hearsay assertions, doubly dubious because from the Intel crowd.
But it is clear what constitutes proof for you: Untestable, just-trust-me assertions from the spooks.
“Something considerably more” is not a thing if you can’t define what that “something” is. I understand you don’t want to be pinned down to an actual “thing” because that way you can continually claim that any and all evidence is bogus.
But it’s bullshit.
fails to deliver.
Case closed.
Good news! Facebook, google, and twitter have confirmed it, too. This is like during the weapons of mass destruction debate with respect to Iraq: the government lied about what they had as far as evidence, and other sources contradicted their evidence meaning it was highly likely they were lying about it. And as we know, they did lie about it. Contrast this with the Iranian nuclear program: the intel agencies said they were not pursing a weapon, all other evidence broadly suggested they were not pursuing a weapon, and now they’ve signed a multi-lateral deal with countries around the world with absurdly rigorous terms about that weapons program, which is more evidence in favor of “Iran is not pursing nuclear weapons.” None of this is “proof” that they’re not, it’s just a shit ton of evidence that would lead a reasonable person to believe that they’re not.
Now contrast these two distinct yet somewhat complimentary happenings of history with the Russia thing. We have evidence from intel agencies, including leaks (last I checked NSA documents are not hearsay) to the Intercept from whistleblower Reality Winner at considerable harm to herself because she can’t believe people like you still deny reality. We have Facebook, google, and twitter pointing out all the disinformation on their sites, including the organizing of rallies. We have the Steele Dossier, wherein we know a lot of which has been confirmed; Natasha Bertrand has helpfully curated it in one place with a timeline of the events. We have Manafort dead to rights. We have Flynn dead to rights. We have people block evidence of all of these people meeting with Putin (the gala dinner photos).
This is all evidence, and it’s not even all of it. Whatever, we are talking with someone who doesn’t believe Assad gassed people despite the OPCW and UN reports.
Once again, those intel docs, if they exist, haven’t been shown to the public. The NSA supposedly has the ability to track all electronic communications worldwide and what they have could clear up or confirm the situation, but they haven’t come forward. Again no evidence. Nothing to be checked, nothing to verify, just the word of intel people not known for having a stellar track record of honesty.
You have nothing. After a full year, nada.
The OPCW — were their investigators on the ground in that Syrian town to collect evidence? It’s my understanding they were not — they got it from the curious White Helmets group, known to operate in rebel/terrorist-held areas. A slight chain of evidence problem perhaps? GIGO.
That worthless report was debunked months ago by Prof Theodore Postel at MIT, per consortiumnews.com. It never made any sense for Assad to attack his own people to begin with, as I noted here at the time.
Do you ever go outside your narrow, one-side only safe zone of the US msm to get another, non-govt approved pov? Doesn’t seem like it. You just parrot msm/intel propaganda.
Meanwhile, Rbt Parry at Consortiumnews has been debunking Russiagate for many months along with an ex-intel group called the VIPs who do solid work. So has Max Blumenthal at Alternet. The leading expert on Russia in the US, Stephen Cohen at TheNation, has been highly skeptical of this pseudo scandal from the beginning, and has been trying to warn idiot Dems leading the charge that their recklessness is creating the most dangerously deteriorated relations w/Russia in his lifetime. A few other Russiagate skeptics like Moon of Alabama and Glenn Greenwald also have been trying to wake people up about the false govt narrative being played on the American public.
Interesting, but not entirely surprising, that I never see these voices and their works cited here. The local Russiagate true believers don’t want to hear anything that upsets their simplistic story of Russia/Putin bad, US good.
But go ahead and pull your hair out about Russians supposedly spending a whopping $100k, over 3 years, most of that post-election, to buy ads at Facebook to influence our pristine election system. Including puppy ads. And that’s only after congressional Dems pressured the hell out of Zberg to come up with something, something!
Last post on this — get back to me when you dudes finally come up with some clean evidence that can be tested openly. And something more substantial than puppy ads …
Brodie, you and the people you name are studiously ignoring evidence which quarrels with your worldview. Like the emails between Donald Jr. and Goldstone cc.’d to Kushner and Manafort, for instance. Explain that away.
There was something very, very wrong about the 2016 campaign and election. You fail to deal with a basic fact: Trump’s election to the Presidency of the United States has served Russia’s interests. Putin and his oligarchs had, and have, a clear motive to destroy Clinton, the Democratic party and the liberal/progressive movement in our country.
The politicians leading the Russian Federation are running a very illiberal government which is opposed to everything you claim for your own worldview, Brodie. Yet here you are at our community, a consistent defender of the Federation and its leaders and a consistent attacker of the Democratic Party.
Your position is weak. As is a political leadership and security state which engages in actions like these:
tobacco-company-“science”, global-warming-denialist, “Conservatives”-Against-Conservation game: Demand “proof” for something unrealistic or even impossible to “prove”, but whose consequences demand a decision on how to meaningfully respond to/address it. Putting off any decision to meaningfully address something by insisting on delay until the demanded (but unrealistic/impossible) “proof” is presented, is, of course, itself a decision — just a bad one.
A preponderance of the available evidence is obviously the reasonable and appropriate evidentiary standard here, which — here within the Reality-Based Community — has obviously been met.
So obviously that it forces one to wonder if Brodie’s one of those Russian trolls, paid or unpaid, that we’ve learned so much about over the past year or so. Else his conduct is hard to explain.
He’s been a commenter here for years, otherwise yeah it’s be obvious he was a Russian troll. The truth is that he’s just opposed to US empire, but not against a Russian one — whether it’s a fascist government leading Russia under Putin, or a Stalinist/Communist one. When your praxis is “the US is the ultimate evil,” you’re willing to justify, endorse, and applaud alliances with fascists.
Perhaps a fitting description of the tankies who pollute social media (thinking Tumblr at the moment). With you about the bot stuff. Doubt this guy’s a bot. We have had our share though over the last year. If nothing else, they’re interesting to observe.
You get a 4 because you are the only person in this thread to actually recommend someone.
If you want to win against the RatPubs?
As soon as possible, if not sooner.
Quickly followed by Schumer and HRC.
Quickly!!!
AG
Hillary isn’t in office or running for anything, how much more retired could she be? so back the F@$k off
Exactly. Thanks for saying this!
You really believe that the Clinton Foundation has no pull in the upper reaches of the DNC?
Amazing.
Money talks, very few walk.
AG
Correct. Trump’s around tho and today he did this.
And Lil Jeff Sesh did this.
Can’t leave out this fuckhead.
But someone who is never running for anything else ever, sucks.
And both parties are the same but the DemRat party is worse.
for other than the Trumpaloooza, DC-GOP sucks, and DC Dems something, something?
An astounding (in a good way for once in the era of darkness) development in Colorado Springs, CO (back to political junkie 101 if you’re unfamiliar with the political landscape there) from April 2017:
Jim Hightower reports – Populist victory in a conservative town
Outspent by at least ten to one, the “liberal losers” managed to win three out of the three seats they contested and an incumbent they endorsed won as well.
None of this is remarkable. Twenty-four years of libel and slander against Hillary Clinton is the primary reason she had so many negatives. Lying for 24 straight years will eventually take a toll. And that is the primary reason the bullshit stories during the election had traction: Everyone just knew she was a (harridan)(crook)(murderer), and that colored everything said or thought about this woman.
Likewise, albeit not so dramatically or viciously (though viciously enough), Republicans have hammered home a totally false narrative that is far better known than the actual one.
This is what they do, and how they get away with it. They lie, and lie, and lie, and repeat the lies at every opportunity, and they never shut up.
There’s an additional point on which Mr. Longman does not dwell, but which is highly relevant: the serious downsides of our increasingly gerontocratic federal leadership. As both the relevant literature and our own experience make clear, we are none of us as sharp in our seventies as we were earlier in our lives. These deficits accumulate — more quickly for some than for others, but relentlessly for everyone. That’s a consequence of being human, which not even Pelosi or the Notorious RBG can defy.
As well, we are all products of our times and our experiences; and the times that formed us recede into the past at the rate of 24 hours a day. Each of us in that sense, once we reach adulthood. becomes a little obsolete all the time; and that obsolescence is pretty pronounced by the time one reaches Pelosi’s age. There are perfectly good reasons, apart from anyone’s personal qualities, to want our national leadership renewed by younger people.
I didn’t dwell on it, but I did mention it.
The GOP Senate leadership are also oldies too. The GOP HOR leadership is not but is dominated by really stupid people and that most definitely includes Speaker “Bullshit-all-Day” Ryan.
Pelosi has done some great things in her career in leadership and doesn’t deserve being trashed just for being old. Youth for youth’s sake is not necessarily the answer, especially when there are few if any young leaders ready to step up, and it doesn’t seem like there may be many to do so. Or is that just our perception? How well known and accomplished was Pelosi when she was selected for a leadership role?
That being said, Pelosi should be judged on her record, and if of late she hasn’t been delivering then it makes sense to consider new leadership. Especially when we keep looking at tackling the same problems with the same approaches that haven’t yielded results.
Problem is, the current stock of leaders doesn’t seem to have been cultivating any young guns to step up. That’s a problem.
Problem is, the current stock of leaders doesn’t seem to have been cultivating any young guns to step up. That’s a problem.
That’s the whole point, really. Democratic House members aren’t going to stick around if they can’t get back into the majority. And the DCCC recruits way too many Blue Dogs.
If you’re right, that the prospect of being constantly stuck in the minority would be impetus for members to leave, it would probably exacerbate the current situation, e.g. the dem caucus would increasingly be populated by Blue Dogs and others who are perfectly fine with being in the minority, as long as they can continue to serve some of the same masters that feed those on the right who also exist solely to do their bidding.
We need a leadership change for that reason, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be “young” faces, but at least those who see the current situation for what it is. That Pelosi and and the current leadership don’t see that, has nothing to do with age. It may be best described by something Upton Sinclair said, i.e. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Nope.
Nancy Smash needs to stay
Works for me.
If not for Pelosi, Social Security would have been privatized and bankrupted by 2008. She promised publicly and in no uncertain terms that she would fight privatization with no compromises and defeat it. She delivered on that promise. All calls for her retirement should be scrutinized through that lens. Steny Hoyer? Not in her league, IMO.