by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
As I mentioned in a posting yesterday, Kevin McCarthy, the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, suffered a couple of political embarrassments last week. First, he invited Larry Lindsey, a former economics adviser in the George W. Bush administration, in to give a pep talk to members of the GOP leadership in the House. That foray into professional development, or team-building, or whatever, quickly went off the rails when Lindsey decided that he would enlighten the members present with his own views of Donald Trump's mental health, views that he acquired from two psychiatrists whom he convinced to give Trump a psych eval from afar.
Larry Lindsey, who in all likelihood did not tell the Republican representatives anything that they did not already know, still managed to smash the party's facade of treating Trump's petty, vindictive, lying, blowhard nature as normal. And to make matters worse, the press also managed to gain access to his remarks. The emperor was indeed naked!
But all of that abject humiliation was just one part of Kevin McCarthy's very bad week. The other shoe dropped on Friday when Justin Amash, a young Republican (and Libertarian) congressman from Michigan, decided to post a few tweets expressing his belief that, according to the findings of the Mueller Report, Donald Trump had committed impeachable offenses. The wall of Republican solidarity behind Donald Trump in the House of Representatives had been cracked.
It didn't take long for Trump and the other Russian bots on Twitter to begin firing back. Trump immediately went to his comfort zone and began name-calling, in this case referring to Amash as a "lightweight," and implying the he was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. McCarthy, for his part, belittled his Republican colleague in the House and not being a very faithful adherent to the party line.
The young upstart had been promptly and appropriately put in his place by his political betters
But Justin Amash wasn't going to back down. On Monday he fired another volley of tweets at Trump, this time stating that he should face impeachment. The House Freedom Caucus, the umbrella group for the extreme GOP right-wing nut jobs in Congress - and a group that Justin Amash helped found - quickly issued a condemnation of their outspoken member. Paragons of virtue like Ohio's Rep. Jim Jordan (a peripheral character in a sexual abuse of students scandal at Ohio State) were appalled by Amash's outspoken maligning of Trump - and even newly elected Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, himself a well known Trump critic, gave a somewhat garbled condemnation of Amash's tweets.
Not surprisingly, after his remarks regarding Trump over the past few days, Congressman Amash has already drawn a primary challenger, although in fairness to the congressman it needs to be pointed out that the newly minted challenger had been planning to primary him anyway, but moved his announcement forward to ride any backlash that might develop following Amash's criticism of Trump.
So what's going on with Justin Amash? It the young (39 y/o) congressman on a mission to commit political harakiri, or is there a method to his madness?
Here is a compilation of a few theories that have been floating across the internet.
Apparently Michigan is likely to lose one congressional seat after next year's census, and there is a strong possibility that new district lines will ravage the district that Amash currently holds - so his incumbency adantage will be damaged anyway. There is also another notion that Amash is intentionally picking a fight with the ever-defensive Trump as a forerunner to seeking the Libertarian nomination to challenge Trump in next year's election. That would mean that Trump would have to pay attention to William Weld's challenge from the left and Amash on his right - as well as whoever the Democrats nominate. That might amount to more name-calling than even Trump could handle!
Rep. Amash has also hinted that he may have his eye on another political office - such as governor of Michigan, or that state's U.S. Senator.
Or one other possibility is that Justin Amash is being totally honest and that he feels Donald John Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors and deserves to be impeached and removed from office - and party considerations be damned!
Whatever his motivations, Justin Amash is speaking out against Donald Trump, and the fact that Amash is from the right-wing of Trump's own political party just makes his defection all the sweeter!
Citizen Journalist
As I mentioned in a posting yesterday, Kevin McCarthy, the Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, suffered a couple of political embarrassments last week. First, he invited Larry Lindsey, a former economics adviser in the George W. Bush administration, in to give a pep talk to members of the GOP leadership in the House. That foray into professional development, or team-building, or whatever, quickly went off the rails when Lindsey decided that he would enlighten the members present with his own views of Donald Trump's mental health, views that he acquired from two psychiatrists whom he convinced to give Trump a psych eval from afar.
Larry Lindsey, who in all likelihood did not tell the Republican representatives anything that they did not already know, still managed to smash the party's facade of treating Trump's petty, vindictive, lying, blowhard nature as normal. And to make matters worse, the press also managed to gain access to his remarks. The emperor was indeed naked!
But all of that abject humiliation was just one part of Kevin McCarthy's very bad week. The other shoe dropped on Friday when Justin Amash, a young Republican (and Libertarian) congressman from Michigan, decided to post a few tweets expressing his belief that, according to the findings of the Mueller Report, Donald Trump had committed impeachable offenses. The wall of Republican solidarity behind Donald Trump in the House of Representatives had been cracked.
It didn't take long for Trump and the other Russian bots on Twitter to begin firing back. Trump immediately went to his comfort zone and began name-calling, in this case referring to Amash as a "lightweight," and implying the he was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. McCarthy, for his part, belittled his Republican colleague in the House and not being a very faithful adherent to the party line.
The young upstart had been promptly and appropriately put in his place by his political betters
But Justin Amash wasn't going to back down. On Monday he fired another volley of tweets at Trump, this time stating that he should face impeachment. The House Freedom Caucus, the umbrella group for the extreme GOP right-wing nut jobs in Congress - and a group that Justin Amash helped found - quickly issued a condemnation of their outspoken member. Paragons of virtue like Ohio's Rep. Jim Jordan (a peripheral character in a sexual abuse of students scandal at Ohio State) were appalled by Amash's outspoken maligning of Trump - and even newly elected Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, himself a well known Trump critic, gave a somewhat garbled condemnation of Amash's tweets.
Not surprisingly, after his remarks regarding Trump over the past few days, Congressman Amash has already drawn a primary challenger, although in fairness to the congressman it needs to be pointed out that the newly minted challenger had been planning to primary him anyway, but moved his announcement forward to ride any backlash that might develop following Amash's criticism of Trump.
So what's going on with Justin Amash? It the young (39 y/o) congressman on a mission to commit political harakiri, or is there a method to his madness?
Here is a compilation of a few theories that have been floating across the internet.
Apparently Michigan is likely to lose one congressional seat after next year's census, and there is a strong possibility that new district lines will ravage the district that Amash currently holds - so his incumbency adantage will be damaged anyway. There is also another notion that Amash is intentionally picking a fight with the ever-defensive Trump as a forerunner to seeking the Libertarian nomination to challenge Trump in next year's election. That would mean that Trump would have to pay attention to William Weld's challenge from the left and Amash on his right - as well as whoever the Democrats nominate. That might amount to more name-calling than even Trump could handle!
Rep. Amash has also hinted that he may have his eye on another political office - such as governor of Michigan, or that state's U.S. Senator.
Or one other possibility is that Justin Amash is being totally honest and that he feels Donald John Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors and deserves to be impeached and removed from office - and party considerations be damned!
Whatever his motivations, Justin Amash is speaking out against Donald Trump, and the fact that Amash is from the right-wing of Trump's own political party just makes his defection all the sweeter!
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