June 4 is International Tiananmen Square Day
May 29, 2022 at 4:25 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentLook here, because the famous photo of a lone individual blocking a column of tanks is copyrighted, and I can’t show it to you.
For the enormous significance of the protests in 1989 at Tiananmen Square, see here, and also see the PBS DVD Tiananmen, The People Versus the Party.
On June 4 – on every June 4 – wear or carry something black, since the demonstrators at Tiananmen Square wore black to identify their support of freedom of thought in China.
An Indispensable Source About Jane Austen’s Family and World
May 29, 2022 at 3:33 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Chawton House in the Snow, March 2008, by Raymoseley at the English Wikipedia
Caroline Jane Knight’s book, Jane & Me, My Austen Heritage, is an indispensable source of new information about Jane Austen’s personality, experiences, family life, and family history.
The author is a descendant of Jane’s brother Edward, so she has both Austen and Knight heritage.
She grew up in Chawton House, and has access to internal family lore and records. Most of the information in her book is not contained in any of the other books on Jane Austen.
Here are some examples of what you will find in Caroline Jane Knight’s book:
– Why Jane and Cassandra’s brother George was mostly hidden away, and what
became of him.
– What became of Chawton House over the years, and what it was like to live there.
– The game traditionally played at Christmas in Chawton House.
– The Knights were originally really knights.
– Why the Knight’s adopted Edward, and had him change his last name to Knight.
– Jane Austen’s keen insight that when Edward’s adoptive mother turned the Knight
properties over to Edward, she wasn’t doing Edward a favor.
– Why Edward had to delay giving his mother and sisters (and Martha Lloyd) a
permanent place to live, namely Chawton Cottage: there were financial and legal
challenges that Edward had to settle first.
– What became of Godmersham.
– Chawton was the squire’s residence, and what that meant to the community. When the
author visited Chawton after a long time away from it, as soon as a woman in the town
learned the author’s family name, the woman curtseyed deferentially to the author,
astounding the person who had accompanied the author, and who hadn’t known of her
family background.
– On two occasions in the past, the squire of Chawton was a woman. How the first
female squire of Chawton tried to ensure that all future squires would be male.
– Local jealousy and resentment of the imagined “cushy” easy existence of the squire
and of his family.
– Sandy Lerner’s role in preserving Chawton House. How Chawton house became – at
least temporarily – a museum and research institute on early literature written by
women. (Sandy Lerner is familiar to most serious North American fans of Jane Austen.
Sandy had a wonderful museum of carriages from the Regency period.)
The author mentions the great value of Linda Slothuber’s research on Austen’s family. (Linda is familiar to Jane Austen fans in and around Washington DC.)
The author’s life was full of dramatic changes, and is quite instructive.
The author founded The Jane Austen Literacy Foundation (www.janeaustenlf.org).
A Key to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
August 1, 2021 at 7:40 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
You have almost certainly read Jane Austen’s most famous novel, Pride & Prejudice, or seen a movie adaption of it. In addition to an enthralling plot, full of unexpected turns, this novel, like her others, is known for its insights into human nature, and the ways we trip ourselves up.
The plot centers on the repercussions of an initial misunderstanding between the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, and the hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy. The misunderstanding arose because Elizabeth, while she was sitting at a ball, waiting to be asked to dance, overheard Darcy say “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”
This incident in her fiction might have been inspired by an aspect of Jane Austen’s own experience.
Jane Austen insisted that none of the characters in her novels were based upon particular people. But the personalities and human interactions in her novels necessarily spring from some combination of the personalities and human interactions she had encountered, along with her imagination. One example is the residential displacement and financial stress experienced by wives and daughters when the male head of household dies. That scenario appears both in Pride & Prejudice and in Sense and Sensibility.
Jane Austen was not considered to be particularly pretty, especially in comparison to her older sister Cassandra.
Jane’s awareness of that general opinion about her appearance is probably why Pride & Prejudice contains Darcy’s initial disparaging statement, and is also why the plot hinges upon Darcy’s remark.
Near the end of Pride & Prejudice there occurs a related instance where Jane’s own experiences probably appear in transmuted form. As noted by Joan Klingel Ray, in Simply Austen, Simply Charly, 2017:
Replying to her question about why he first came to admire and love her, he [Darcy] says that “the liveliness of her mind” attracted him the most.“
Jane Austen’s personal experiences might also have contributed to her vivid awareness of the stress noted above on the female survivors of the death of a male head of household. Joan Austen, Cassandra, and her mother experienced those stresses. Recall that all of Jane Austen’s novels appeared only after the death of her father. His failure to prioritize his wife’s and daughters’ future financial security is discussed in Marian Veever’s outstanding dual biography of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth (Jane and Dorothy, Pegasus Books, 2018). That aspect of Jane’s experience may also have influenced the creation of the paternally-inattentive Mr. Bennet in Pride & Prejudice.
Remember, too, the Other Memorial Day
May 25, 2020 at 12:13 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Enemies of Freedom, Fairness, Good People | Leave a commentTags: Chen Guangchen, China, Fairness, freedom, government for the people, Jeff Widener, patriotism, People's Liberation Army, Tank Man, Tiananmen Square
A Chinese Type 59 tank at the Beijing Military Museum. A Type 59 main battle tank on display at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in western Beijing. On June 3, 1989, People’s Liberation Army soldiers on Type 59 tanks began firing on civilian demonstrators at Muxidi near the military museum.
(Wikipedia) Photo by Max Smith.
Tiananmen Square Day (June 4, every year) memorializes the patriotic martyrs in China who were slain by tanks and by other means beginning on June 4, 1989, in Beijing and in other cities in China.
Recall Jeff Widener’s (Associated Press) astounding image of Tank Man, blocking a column of Type 59 tanks heading east on Beijing‘s Chang’an Boulevard (Avenue of Eternal Peace) near Tiananmen Square.
Nowadays Tiananmen Square Day also salutes
– those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Hong Kong,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Venezuela,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Iran,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Syria,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Egypt,
– and at so many other times and places.
To see more about Tiananmen Square Day, and to see how to honor both past and present martyrs for freedom, see here, and here, and here, and here.
Good News for Some Race Horses
May 20, 2020 at 7:55 pm | Posted in Brain and mind, Fairness, Good People, Humans and other animals | Leave a commentTags: abuse of animals, Annie Marie Musselman, breeders, bull, bull-fight, calf, cow, George Stubbs, horse, humane treatment, Iditerod, Jay Hovdey, kindness to animals, kitten, Mikel Ortega, Noah Salzman, pet, pet store, puppy, rabbit, race horse, Richard Bartz, sled dog
When horses lie down to sleep, others in the herd remain standing, awake or in a light doze, keeping watch. Horses on Bianditz mountain, in Navarre, Spain. Behind them Aiako mountains can be seen. Photo by Mikel Ortega from Errenteria, Basque Country, Spain, retouched by Richard Bartz. 8 October 2006.
The usual life-trajectory of a race horse is good treatment followed by horror.
From babyhood until it is no longer considered a contender, the horse is treated as
valued, almost as a pet.
The horse is coddled, and receives affection and care. Horses are sensitive and
emotional, so they are fully aware of the affection and care.
Then, all of a sudden, and for no reason that the horse can discern, affection is replaced
by harshness, and the horse is sent to slaughter, like a person being sent to a
concentration camp.
This practice is a betrayal – a betrayal of the trust of a very emotional, sensitive animal.
Recently, for a few lucky race horses, the horrific ending has been edited out. This good
news is told in an article “When the Race is Over”, by Annie Marie Musselman, with
photos by Jay Hovdey, in the May 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine.
The title of this post says ‘some’ race horses, because not all middle-aged race horses
are lucky enough to go to the refuge described in the article. Many of the other race
horses are slaughtered.
An analogous betrayal happens to
– a cow who has stopped having calves and giving milk;
– a bull who is sent into a bull-fighting ring.
It is likely that an analogous betrayal occurs for many sled dogs during Iditerod, where
many of the dogs who become too exhausted to keep up the pace are killed en route.
By the way, what happened to all of the puppies, kittens, rabbits and other animals in pet stores, and at breeders, while the new corona virus kept pet stores closed for over a month?
Those last four topics will be discussed further in future posts.
But on a more cheerful note, there are good people who recognize the feelings of animals.
Here is a ring-tailed lemur in Africa who likes having people scratch its back, and who instinctively knows how to tell them to keep scratching.
Here is a young deer who accidentally discovered that it loves belly rubs, and is quite unwilling to let people stop giving them. (You probably have not previously heard a deer’s voice.)
Here is a lost newborn fawn who is rescued by a little girl.
(If you like animals, Reshareworthy will be a favorite web site.)
Potential ways of killing the corona virus
March 31, 2020 at 2:34 pm | Posted in Health and safety, Practical tips | 2 CommentsTags: corona virus, coronavirus, covid-19, pandemic, SARS COV-2
A still from the 3D medical animation https://www.scientificanimations.com/coronavirus-symptoms-and-prevention-explained-through-medical-animation/ , 30 January 2020.
The diameter of a corona virus is about 120 nanometers.
(See this Wikipedia article, which bases this value of the diameter upon the very instructive article, Fehr AR, Perlman S (2015), “Coronaviruses: An Overview of Their Replication and Pathogenesis; Section 2 Genomic Organization”, in Maier HJ, Bickerton E, Britton P (eds.), Methods in Molecular Biology, Springer. 1282: 1–23. The freely-down-loadable pre-publication version of the article by Fehr and Perlman is available here.)
A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and a meter is slightly larger than a yard.
It might aid visualization to note that a nanometer is about ten times the diameter of a hydrogen atom in that atom’s ground state. So 120 nanometers is about the length covered by 1200 hydrogen atoms, if there were no spaces between the electron “clouds” of the atoms.
Light having a vacuum wavelength of 120 nanometers would be deep in the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. So ultraviolet light of twice that wavelength or shorter should efficiently heat and destroy exposed virus particles (“virions”). This could be used to disinfect air and exposed surfaces. Of course, the eyes and skin of humans and other animals would have to be protected from this type of ultraviolet light.
What about corona viruses hidden within the body?
The speed of sound in soft tissue is roughly 1540 meters per second. (The exact value varies with the type of the tissue.) A wavelength of 120 nanometers would correspond to an acoustic frequency of 1540/(120 x 10-9) = 12.83 GHz. Doubling the wavelength would halve the frequency to 6.42 GHz. That is near the upper range of commercially available ultrasonic devices (see here). Ultrasound of that frequency or higher should efficiently heat and destroy virions hidden within the body. Frequencies ten times that, or more, would stress the tall spike structural glyco-proteins that stud the virion’s envelope.
These weapons could be used against all types of corona viruses: that is, against SARS, MERS, SARS COV-2, most non-rhinovirus forms of the common cold, and against corona virus types yet to emerge.
Tweets by thepoliblog – 2
January 27, 2020 at 4:26 pm | Posted in Disinformation, Dysfunctional Politics, Enemies of Freedom, Enemies of Planet Earth, Fairness, Global warming, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: Chuck Schumer, Cipollone, Cory Booker, Dan Balz, Devin Nunes, Donald Trump, E. J. Dionne Jr., Erin Chou, Eugene Robinson, Fiona Hill, Group of Seven, impeach, Jim Acosta, Jim Jordan, Joe Biden, John Delaney, John McCain, Kamala Harris, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Louis Gohmert, Marsha Blackburn, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Narendra Modi, Pete Buttigieg, President Chump, Puerto Rico, Putin, Rudi Giuliani, Sekulow, Stepanie Grisham, Stephanie Grisham, Ted Lieu, Tom Perez, tweet, Twitter, US Congress, US Senate
640×417.NorthernMockingbird.U.S.Fish&WildlifeService.jpg
Here are newer tweets by thepoliblog.
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2019-08-23
#PresidentChump, you said that Xi Jingping is an enemy of the United States.
Xi is not the only enemy head of state.
Putin is another.
You are the third, and worst.
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2019-09-06
[@SpeakerPelosi, who noted that Chump opposed energy-efficient light bulbs.]
Who bought #PresidentChump this time?
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2019-09-06
[@SenSchumer]
If McConnell will only bring up bills that #PresidentChump supports,
then he is violating the Constitution by undermining its checks and balances.
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2019-09-09
After the Group of Seven met, the other leaders said,
“The US is not sending us their best.
It sent us an ignorant, insecure, bigoted groper and would-be rapist.“
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2019-09-09
[@drerinchou (Dr. Erin Chou)]
The Straight Pride marchers are as insecure as President Chump.
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2019-09-09
[@SenSchumer]
Trump is Putin’s chihuahua, and McConnell is Trump’s chihuahua.
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2019-10-09
[@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, ]@RepAdamSchiff, @SenSchumer
#PresidentChump claimed that he was worried about corruption in Ukraine.
But he didn’t say “I need you to do the right thing.”
He said, “I would like you to do us a favor though”. He asked for corruption.
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2019-10-19
[@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @RepAdamSchiff, @SenSchumer]
Why does #PresidentChump want to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty?
The editors of the Washington Post say that the treaty “monitors the conflict
in eastern Ukraine being fueled by Russia.”
Chump wants to aid Putin.
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2019-10-25
Medicare for all would be a Government monopoly of healthcare.
It would become like the VA at its worst, with no alternative.
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2019-10-25
To undo #PresidentChump’s damage:
Biden, who is electable, humane, and knowledgeable,
backed up by Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg (one as VP and one in the Cabinet),
and John Delaney, Cory Booker, and other good candidates in the Cabinet.
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2019-10-26
[@realDonaldTrump]
#PresidentChump, why isn’t your Twitter tag @realJohnBarron?
In pretending to be someone else, you tried to create REAL fake news!
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2019-11-22
[@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez]
Today’s Washington Post described Bernie Sanders as “staunchly liberal”.
Sanders is not liberal, he is statist. He is not a democratic socialist,
because he doesn’t like democracy.
Sanders wants Gov’t to be the only source of everything,
with no alternatives, no choice.
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2019-11-22
McConnell blocked sanctions on Russia
because after McC’s wife joined #PresidentChump’s administration,
McConnell ceased to be on our side. He became #MoscowMitch.
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2019-11-24
[@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez]
Fiona Hill’s words apply to Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy:
they “promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests”.
To help #PresidentChump, they have to help Putin. So they do.
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2019-12-02
@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez, @SenSchumer
Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy: Putin’s mouthpieces in the House.
Either unknowingly or knowingly. Stupid or disloyal or both. #Putin’sMouthpieces.
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2019-12-02
[@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez]
#PresidentChump wants to build a #ChumpTower in one or more cities in Russia.
That is why he finds it convenient to believe Putin rather than the CIA.
President Chump is one of #Putin’sMouthpieces.
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2019-12-06
#PresidentChump was mocked at the NATO conference because he doesn’t favor
the free world. He is not the leader of the free world.
President Chump Made America Second Rate Again.
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2019-12-19
[@Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez]
#PresidentChump, you send asylum seekers back to dangerous areas.
Should Spain in the 1930s and 1940s have deported those who snuck into Spain to flee the Nazis and Vichy France? How was that different from refugees from gangs?
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2019-12-19
[@Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez]
#PresidentChump’s deferrment from the draft resulted from
a diagnosis of heel spurs made by a doctor whose office was rented from Fred Trump.
Chump’s walking never shows any effect of heel spurs.
Chump, prove that you really had heel spurs.
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2019-12-19
McConnell promises to lie under oath during Trump’s trial by the Senate.
Isn’t that impeachable? Cannot McConnel be at least censured?
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2019-12-20
[@SpeakerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @TomPerez]
President Chump’s post-impeachment message to Nancy Pelosi proves it:
#PresidentChump is a psychopath.
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2019-12-24
[@Spea[kerPelosi, @Eugene_Robinson, @SenSchumer]
If McConnell blocks #PresidentChump’s Trump’s conviction on the current
bills of impeachment, Chump can be re-impeached on other counts.
This justifies Congress’ calls for hitherto refused testimony and information.
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2019-12-24
[@Eugene_Robinson]
As Eugene Robinson noted, Mark Galli’s editorial in Christianity Today said,
“Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story …”
#PresidentChump was offered that opportunity, but refused it.
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2019-12-24
Mahatma Ghandi and Jawaharlal Nehru would both be aghast at what that bigot Modi has done.
Narendra Modi spits on what India once stood for.
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2019-12-24
[comment to to a tweet by Jim Acosta about Trump’s claims about windmills]
#PresidentChump is too stupid to know when he sounds stupid.
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2019-12-26
A rare opportunity for #Republican Senators: #PresidentChump’s impeachment.
Return to classical Republicanism. Reclaim your honor.
Disassociate from #MoscowMitch.
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2019-12-26
#Republican Senators: switch back from Putin’s side to the American side:
expel the creepy clown in the White House.
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2019-12-26
If enough #Republican Senators vote to expel the creepy clown in the White
House, then neither the Chump nor his base would have a well-defined target.
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2020-01-07
[@LindseyGrahamSC]
Lindsey Graham, why did you stop being a patriot?
The answer: you thought it would boost your chance of being re-elected.
John McCain would have been ashamed of you. You should be, too.
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2020-01-07
@LindseyGrahamSC]
In the history books, you will be grouped with Devin Nunes and Louis Gohmert.
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2020-01-13
[@TomPerez, @Eugene_Robinson]
#PresidentChump: defective as a human being, and is destructive to America and to the free world.
But if Sanders becomes the Democratic candidate I will leave blank the Presidential line on the ballot.
Sanders would be as bad as Trump, but in a different way.
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See Heathcare For All? Yes! But Beware Medicare For All
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2020-01-13
[A comment to Erin Chou’s tweet that
“I’m puzzled by the growing number of so-called vegan products being peddled by Burger King and others. If I were a vegan, why would I want to support a business whose core is based on cruelty and slaughter?”]
Let them transition. Every increase in humaneness has been gradual.
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2020-01-13
[A comment to Nancy Pelosi’s tweet that
“After this weekend’s 6.0 earthquake, we continue to pray for our fellow American citizens in Puerto Rico. Trump Admin must quickly approve Governor’s request for a Major Disaster Declaration and stop withholding Congressionally appropriated funds to recover from 2017 hurricanes.”]
He’s withholding the Congressionally appropriated funds because he wants a favor, though.
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2020-01-13
[A comment to Jim Acosta’s tweet that
“Grisham defends Trump’s tweet of Schumer and Pelosi in traditional Muslim clothing: “I think the president is making clear that the democrats have been parroting Iranian talking points and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill the Americans.”
Stephanie Grisham, the taxpayer funded Press Secretary, does not do her job.
Instead she creates disinformation.
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2020-01-16
[@Eugene_Robinson, @EJDionne]
E.J. Dionne Jr’s op-ed today mentioned “Rudi Giuliani’s unseemly efforts to undermine
our own ambassador to Ukraine”.
Giuliani’s actions were illegal for a US Citizen.
Lock him up!
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2020-01-19
[@Eugene_Robinson, @danbalz]
Another #NeverSanders voter!
Make that #NeverSanders, #NeverTrump.
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2020-01-19
[A a comment to Ted Lieu tweet about Devin Nunes]
Nunes can’t change the fact that he will go down in history as one of Putin’s mouthpieces.
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2020-01-24
Every time McConnell is mentioned in connection with #Trump’s trial,
recall that McConnell’s wife is in Trump’s Cabinet.
Conflict of Interest!
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2020-01-24
[A comment on a tweet by Jim Acosta that
“Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn spent hours attacking Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key National Security Council aide who testified before Congress on the Ukraine scandal, on Twitter, including questioning the Purple Heart recipient’s patriotism”]
That proves that Marsha Blackburn is not a true patriot, and opposes those who are.
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2020-01-25
Washington Post headline: “defense [of #trump] will focus on Bidens”
Note the attempt to change the subject. Note the utter irrelevance.
This proves that Cipollone and Sekulow have no case – NOTHING!
Bunion and Hammer Toe
January 4, 2020 at 4:49 pm | Posted in Practical tips | 2 CommentsTags: ball of foot, bunion, foot pain, hammer toe
Bunion and Hammer Toe, thepoliblog.WordPress.com
Some bunions cause a hammer toe. The photo above shows a bunion bulging toward the left. The bunion causes the big toe to veer in the opposite direction, forcing the next toe to climb on top of the big toe, forming a hammer toe.
When walking, the hammer toe can cause intense pain in the ball of the affected foot.
By accident, I came upon a simple fix: Each morning, before putting a shoe on the affected foot, push the hammer toe to its proper undeformed position. Whether or not the toe stays there, that temporary relocation will relieve much of the stress on the foot, and you will be able to walk all day as if there were no hammer toe.
The easiest way to do this is use the heel of the other foot to gently press down the hammer toe.
The single-toe and multi-toe foam restraints that are sold commercially did not work as well as this simple expedient.
Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’
December 29, 2019 at 8:56 pm | Posted in Good books, Good People | Leave a commentTags: Barak Obama, Becoming, best seller, Good People, Michelle Obama
Official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama in the Green Room of the White House, 12 February 2013, Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
We read Michelle Obama’s autobiography aloud in the evenings, and it has become one of our favorite books.
It is illuminating, fascinating, and heart-warming.
Michelle Obama’s Becoming is full of insights and surprises. It changes the way you look at people – at all people. It is utterly clear and is beautifully written, its topics are very important, and it deserves to be a classic.
Not many books make you care deeply about the author’s family. This one does.
Her father, Fraser Robinson III, her mother, Marian Shields Robinson, and her brother, Craig Robinson – each was warm, principled, and an independent and wonderfully clear-sighted thinker.
When her heroic father struggles to continue to do as much as possible despite the worsening ravages of Cushing’s Syndrome and Multiple Sclerosis, you can’t help rooting for him every step of the way. His story is unforgettable.
Becoming has deservedly remained on the non-fiction best-sellers list for many months.
Prevent Abuse by the Senate Majority Leader
September 27, 2019 at 8:13 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Dysfunctional Politics, Enemies of Freedom, Fairness | Leave a commentTags: Constitution, Mitch McConnell, Senate
Mitch McConnell at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore. (For more imformation see Post 141 in theploblog’s index of posts.)
Mitch McConnell abuses his position as the Majority Leader of the Senate.
Mitch McConnell has declared himself to be the Senate’s Grim Reaper, a position not forseen in the Constitution.
He has declared that the Senate shall not even consider any bill that the President wouldn’t sign, thereby rendering empty the Constitution’s provision for Congress to overturn a Presidential veto – a central ingredient of the Constitution’s mandating of checks and balances, including Comgressional oversight of the Executive.
McConnell has unilaterally declared that no nomination by a President will be considered during that President’s last year, if that President was from the opposing party. He sneered that no such restriction would apply to a similar nomination by a President belonging to McConnell’s own party.
McConnell has obstructed efforts to protect the integrity of American elections.
McConnell has obstructed efforts to prevent sensible limitations on access to weapons that enable mass killings, despite the large majority of Americans that now favor such limitations.
The Senate Majority leader has too much power.
The writers of the Constitution never foresaw the possibility of this type of abuse of power by a Senator, and certainly wouldn’t have wanted it to occur.
Either the rules of the Senate must be changed to prevent this sort of abuse, or the Constitution must be amended to do so.
The rule should be that within 10 days of receiving a bill passed by the House or a nomination from the President, the whole availible body of the Senate shall vote on whether to have debates and a vote to approve or to disapprove the bill from the House, or the nomination by the President. This first vote does not require the Senators to have studied the prospective bill or candidate: they need only to have a rough sense of what the bill is about, or a rough sense of the nominee’s background. If at least 40% of the Senate votes to debate and then vote upon the House bill or on the Presidential nomination, the debate and the legally-binding vote shall occur in a timely fashion. Those who voted for the debate and the binding vote shall schedule the date for the binding vote, allowing adequate time for Senators to scrutinize the bill or to interview the candidate. The Majority Leader of the Senate shall have no special role in setting that date, and may participate in setting that date only if having voted for the debate and binding vote to occur.
Most of the procedures in a legislative body should be independent of which party currently dominates the membership of that body. Of course the outcomes of many of votes will be determined by the majority. But not all outcomes will ne determined that way: legislators have the right to not always vote the party line. McConnell’s rule takes away some of that freedom of conscience, and assumes that all voting will be by unchanging blocks.
Mitch McConnell has chosen to become one of the major villains in American history.
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