Gosar should be removed

Arizona GOP representative Paul Gosar, one of the founding members of the new American Fascist Party, posted an anime video to his Twitter account in which he is depicted killing his colleague in the House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and then turning his sword on President Joe Biden. 

Gosar should immediately be removed from Congress because, let's face it, if you or I or anyone posted a tweet like this today, the U.S. Secret Service would be knocking on our door tomorrow. Make no mistake, what Gosar did is a crime. He encouraged violence against a sitting Congresswomen and the United States President. 

Gosar, whose five siblings spoke out - and continue to speak out - against him being elected to Congress, has ties to white nationalists and has praised the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. However, if you are waiting for the American Fascist Party leadership, formerly the GOP leadership, to do anything about this, don't hold your breath. 

Let's be clear. This is the same authoritarian organization that kicked Liz Cheney out of her leadership role in the party for not going along with former President Donald Trump's big lie, and telling the truth about the election, but refuse to do anything about Gosar or Marjorie Taylor Greene.   

This is part of an even more worrying trend in this country. Since November 3, 2020, members of the Trump cult, citizens who I presume at one point use to believe in democracy, have been calling elections officials, school board officials, elected officials, public health officials and threatening their lives and the lives of their wives and children for not going along with the big lie. 

As disgusting as this is, the even more worrying trend is that law enforcement seems inclined not to do anything about it. It was this failure to act, or failure to see these terrorists as a real threat, that allowed the cult to penetrate the U.S. Capitol building itself.

Now they seem to refusing, in general, to go after these people who continue to this day to commit these crimes. Threating to kill someone is a crime whether it is done over the phone or through a tweet like Gosar. 

If you believe for a second that the threat posed by Trump and his brownshirts in Congress is over, you are sorely mistaken. In Virginia enough people who voted to oust Trump in 2020, voted in a Trumpist Cult member in Glen Younkin last week. THE THREAT IS NOT OVER. 

If you love democracy and you want to continue to have a say in who your elected leaders are going forward, the only sane vote is for a Democrat or an Independent, until some semblance of the old GOP reemerges. As currently constituted, the conservative movement is nothing more than an authoritarian, anti-democracy movement who believes in minority rule.

A lengthy wait for infrastructure week!

The Democratic Party, after months of wrangling and "negotiating", finally pulled the trigger on passing the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure bill that was first passed in the United States Senate many months ago. 

This bi-partisan bill, which passed the Senate 69-30, laid needlessly in wait so that the progressive wing of the Democrats could try to force a vote on the huge "human" infrastructure bill at the same time. These progressive members felt the need to hold the bi-partisan bill as leverage to assure they got a vote on human infrastructure, commonly known as President Joe Biden's build back better agenda.

Here is the problem with all this. The progressives wasted time holding up the $1.2 trillion bi-partisan bill, and still did not force a vote on the bigger bill. They are still counting on their colleagues in the Democratic Party to honor their word. If this was going to be the end result anyway, why didn't they just pass the first bill months ago, and move on to negotiation the reconciliation bill? 

All that time that was wasted is time that could have been used to get these infrastructure projects off the ground, and would have allowed the economy to recover even faster from the Covid-related recession. Plus, the decaying infrastructure in the U.S. was only getting older while this bill was being held hostage.

Just as important, is that this delay in passing meaningful bi-partisan legislation, actually cost those of us who are fighting to preserve democracy, a huge blow. The failure of Congressional Democrats to take a victory when it was readily available to them in the form of the bi-partisan infrastructure bill, led to the fall of Virginia to the Trump-wing of the American Fascist Party.

It is imperative, if we plan on keeping our democracy, that the American Fascist Party (formerly the GOP), is defeated in the coming midterms, or our ability to vote freely will forever be lost at the hands of these authoritarians. If given back the House of Representatives or the Senate, America might be unrecognizable to the us in five-to-six years time.

HOW DOES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FIX THIS? 

FORGET THE MEANING OF THE WORD COMPREHENSIVE! 

The Democratic Party, who I believe is the only political party working on behalf of the American people and the only party who still has some semblance of sanity within it, MUST learn to accept and take the small victories. These small victories will keep voters moving in their direction, and finally maybe give the Democrats the filibuster-proof majorities they are looking for in the Senate. 

1. People would love comprehensive immigration reform, but putting DACA to a vote in Congress would force the moderates in the former GOP to take a hard vote. When you pack a ton of stuff into a comprehensive immigration package, it becomes an easy NO vote for the right.

2. People would love comprehensive gun reform, but putting universal background checks to a stand-alone vote would force the moderates in the former GOP to take a hard vote. When you pack a ton of stuff into one comprehensive gun package, it becomes an easy NO vote for the right.

3. People would love a comprehensive voting rights bill, but declaring election day every year as a national holiday might force a tough vote for the former GOP moderates, but when you pack it with 800 pages of do's and do nots, it becomes an easy NO vote for those on the right.

Until the Democrats can learn to accept small, incremental victories, they will never get any of the big change they truly want. 

When the Democrats won an improbable majority in the Senate in January, I messaged Chuck Schumer, my state Senators, and the DNC chairman about this strategy, but alas, they ignored it, and continue to use the same old tired mistakes despite being on the side of right in this country for the last three decades. For people who claim to do this for a living, they suck at it.