Tag Archives: Mia Love

political news

Rep. Love throws no ‘Love’ back at POTUS

Donald J. Trump took an unusual and uncalled-for step after the midterm election by saying that those Republican candidates who kept their distance from him lost their bids for election and re-election.

The president’s singling out of those candidates, to be candid, was an unconscionable exercise in attention-diversion.

Well, one of those GOP candidates who lost a re-election effort, U.S. Rep. Mia Love of Utah, fired back at the president while conceding this week to her Democratic opponent.

“Mia Love gave me no love and she lost,” Trump said prematurely the day after the midterm election. “Sorry about that, Mia.”

They weren’t finished counting ballots. Rep. Love might have won. She didn’t. She conceded today to Ben McAdams, and then asked why the president would behave in such a crass manner toward her and her fellow Republicans.

“However, this gave me a clear vision of his world,” Love said in her concession. “No real relationships, just convenient transactions. That is an insufficient way to implement sincere service and policy.”

I want to single out the phase “sincere service.” I know that Rep. Love is aware of this, but Donald Trump doesn’t have a sincere bone in his body, unless he’s talking about himself and his so-called success and the “tremendous difference” he says he has made on the nation.

The president exhibits a decided lack of class far more often than most of us want to see and hear. That moronic singling out of Republicans who didn’t give him sufficient “love” is yet another example of the man’s unfitness for public office.

national news, political news

Love brings diversity to Black Caucus

Well, how about this? The Congressional Black Caucus — normally an echo chamber comprising progressive Democrats — is going to have a Republican join its ranks.

U.S. Rep. Mia Love of Utah will become a member of the CBC, a group she once vowed to “dismantle.” She now hopes to change it from within.

Good for her. Good for the CBC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/06/mia-love-joins-the-cbc-the-group-she-vowed-to-dismantle/

It’s not that the CBC has been devoid of Republican members. The most recent member had been Rep. Allen West of Florida, the TEA party blowhard who — in my view — disgraced himself by suggesting that most Democrats were closet communists. Voters tossed him out after a single term.

Black Republicans in the past have been reluctant to join the CBC. The late former Sen. Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the first African-American elected since Reconstruction, didn’t join; neither did former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watt of Oklahoma; current Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina hasn’t joined.

It’s good for the caucus to hear from Rep. Love. She clearly is going to sing from a different hymnal than her CBC colleagues.

That’s OK. A group that preaches “diversity” is now going to haveĀ some within its own ranks.

 

national news, political news

Here's a way to demonstrate diversity

New members of Congress proclaim a “new day” has dawned on Capitol Hill. You hear it after every election.

I get their enthusiasm and their interest in stirring the pot.

Here, though, is the surest way to actually prove a new day has arrived at the seat of federal government power.

The Congressional Black Caucus needs to invite two new members of Congress to its membership: U.S. Rep.-elect Mia Love of Utah and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

They are Republicans.

Traditionally, the CBC has been all-Democrat organization. It goes back to its founding in 1969. The Senate at the time had a black member, Edward Brooke, R-Mass., who didn’t join.

Since then, its membership has comprised Democrats only.

I see nothing in the title of the organization that says its members must beĀ from one party. The very term “Congressional Black Caucus” states quite clearly that all African-Americans who take the oath to serve in Congress are eligible to join.

So, with a brand new African-American Republican from Utah coming on board in January, and with another freshly elected Republican senator from South Carolina (Scott had been appointed to the seat by Gov. Nikki Haley) among its members, the CBC can demonstrate its belief in ideological diversity.

No political organization necessarily needs to be a mere echo chamber, with members parroting each others’ point of view. All political organization need to hear varying points of view. It’s good for the soul and the mind.

The Values Voter Summit earlier this year is an example of an organization that shuts out liberals because, by golly, liberals just don’t appreciate good ol’ American values the way conservatives do. That, of course, is utter horse manure.

Let’s turn this notion on its ear. The CBC is a traditionally progressive organization. How about throwing tradition out the window and insist that two new members of Congress — both Republicans and both clearly conservative — join the CBC and infuse that caucus with some fresh perspective?

You want diversity? There you would have it.