Is Our Current Congress the Worst Ever?
“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress! And by God I have had this Congress!”
Actor William Daniels, as John Adams, in 1776 (dir. Peter Hunt; with William Daniels, Howard da Silva, Ken Howard, et al.; Columbia Pictures, 1992)
Worst Congress of all time?
Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today I will try to make the case that this current Congress of the United States, the representatives of the people of this nation, the people’s house is perhaps the worst ever. In professional sports it is currently in vogue to debate the question of who is the GOAT in that particular sport with the word GOAT an acronym for greatest of all time. Who is the greatest of all time in the NBA, the NFL, in MLB so on and so forth.
No one bothers to debate who is the WOAT or the worst of all time because I suppose it would be in poor taste but it is still of interest to me. I am going to apply the world of sports to the world of government and ask, could this congress be the WOAT or worst of all time? It seems reasonable to think so given what has happened since the 2016 election and especially what has happened in the last few weeks. Here are just a few of many examples for the WOAT premise.
Worst Congress example 1: the Equality Act
Last Friday, one week ago, the Democrat controlled House of Representatives voted 236-173 in favor of the Equality Act. The Democrats were unanimously in favor of passing the Act and 8 Republicans crossed over and voted with them. The Equality Act is another one of those government ideas that government chooses to misname in order to deceive us of its true meaning and intent. The Equality Act actually means the opposite of what its name implies. The bill amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make sexual orientation and gender identity protected characteristics under federal anti-discrimination law.
Boys on girls’ teams
One of the real effects of the bill would be to force public schools to expand female athletic teams to include biological males who identify as transgender girls. Every House Democrat but one, Dan Lipinski of Illinois, co-sponsored the bill and he eventually succumbed to pressure from leadership and signed on as a co-sponsor. Many people including many of those involved in women’s sports in states where this has already been tried, believe that it will destroy women’s sports if it is enacted into law. This bill is a good picture of the fact that the congressional Democrats have lost their hold on reality and descended into the world of fantasy.
At cross purposes with Title IX
Connecticut is already allowing male trans-sexuals to participate in girls sports at the high school level with predictable results. Two male runners have dominated girls high school track since then. Some of the female competitors have described it as “demoralizing.” Title IX was passed after a long struggle to bring equality to the amount of money spent in public sports on girls and boys programs. I certainly had my doubts at the time, but it worked to the benefit of everyone. The Equality Act, if ultimately enacted into law, will most likely destroy all that and destroy the credibility of girls’ sports along with it. Why not just abolish the separation of girls and boys sports and have sports where everyone competes equally for spots on the team? The reason is that it would not accomplish the gender blending that is the real purpose of the Equality Act.
The Senate will likely stop this
The good news is that it will have to pass the Senate in order to become law and that will be very difficult, but still it looks like the wave of the future for Democrats. The Democrats have to keep the radicals in their midst happy or I suppose the Legions of the Woke will arise from their slumber and voice their displeasure at their leadership.
Worst Congress example 2: childish invective
The second example of why I submit this Congress as the worst ever is its constant feuding back and forth with the President like children on social media. Many of the social media exchanges are based on outright lies and unsubstantiated opinions just like the kids in our middle and high schools.
From Somalia to Congress
For example Ilhan Omar, Democrat member of congress from Minnesota, is also an immigrant from Somalia which it would be fair to say is a failed state. Currently about 1% of the population of Somalia lives in the United States a great many of whom are in Minnesota and therefore it is possible to elect a Somali immigrant to Congress in Minnesota. One might conclude then that she came to the United States for several reasons and that at least one of those reasons is perhaps that she likes the United States better than she liked Somalia, otherwise why leave Somalia.
…or does she like America?
Ms. Omar never has a kind word to say about her chosen country, not even that she likes it let alone that she is grateful to be here rather than in one of the most poverty stricken, war torn places on earth. I wish I could tell her that being grateful is no disgrace; in fact, it’s a compli9ment and a desirable trait. Most of her criticism seems to involve what she perceives to be the racism of the American people which, according to her, seems to have been inherited from the founding as original sin. I, like the President, don’t understand this woman and her attitude. Why come here if it is such a terrible place that should be more like her native Somalia.
The Squad
People grow weary of hearing her rants and criticisms along with the three other members who have joined her as “women of color” in Congress. Those would be Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York better known as AOC. These ladies are all very outspoken in their criticism and even the Democrat leadership in the house seems unable to restrain them. Disagreement with them on any issue means an accusation of racism for the one who dares to disagree.
The Squad: faces of Democrats in Congress?
The interracial cat fighting has for the most part been restricted to the Democrat Party as House majority leader Nancy Pelosi tries to lead her party to victory in 2020. Ms. Pelosi has the unenviable job of convincing those four women that there are more people in this country than them and that many of those people are growing weary of them and therefore they are about to make victory in 2020 all but impossible. Ms. Pelosi would, I assume, love to find some way to convince the American people, many of whom are potential Democrat voters, that the four are not typical of Democrats. In other words, she would like to tip toe away from them as quietly as possible without anyone noticing.
Donald Trump, being the kind of psychological master manipulator that he is, refused to let that happen because I assume that he wants the four ladies to be the faces of all Democrats and the spokes persons for the Democrat Party in 2020.
The Tweet
He tweeted the following:
So interesting to see Progressive Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly__and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how__it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
Applicability of the tweet
That tweet is not the way I would have said it and Twitter would not be my choice of communication but it does allow him to speak directly to the people who can then read his words without the real possibility of false interpretation by others. Democrats and the media may falsely report what he said but people can read it for themselves
The tweet is reasonably accurate in expressing the thoughts of what I would guess to be the majority of Americans of all political parties, but the line about “who originally came from” applies only to Ms. Omar. My understanding is that she is the only one of the four to have been born in another country and then immigrated to the United States. By a strange coincidence she is usually the one most critical of her new country and that does tend to make some people want to tell her to go back if she doesn’t like it here.
Pelosi rises to the bait
Perhaps Nancy Pelosi should have said something like, well that’s his opinion and I don’t share it but he’s entitled to it, but she couldn’t resist the bait he set for her. Congress normally moves like molasses in January, but within one day she had the Congress pass a resolution condemning the President’s “racist “tweet. I did not see his remark as racist and I’ll wager that many other people who can read didn’t either. She probably thought it would pacify her four unruly members to pass the resolution, but it won’t because it never does. A pacifier will never satisfy when there is whole food remaining to be eaten. When you grovel and appease, it just sends a message asking for more of the same behavior.
Very thin precedent for Congress so to act
Keep in mind that the Congress has not publicly condemned the actions of a sitting president since James Buchannan about 160 years ago so it was reasonably unprecedented. The resolution itself was mostly a recitation of the way the country was founded and who founded it and most of that part is true. The second part, which draws conclusions about how the nation looks at immigration, is largely untrue, and fails to recognize that there exist immigration laws duly passed by congress when we had sanity in government.
Perhaps Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have started to believe their own press clippings and there are plenty of those. The New York Times has trouble printing the word Trump without also printing the words racist and hate or hateful. Last Sunday’s edition carried an opinion piece entitled “The Joy of Hatred” in which the author reported on a Trump rally in which many in the crowd screamed “send her back.” Remember, any disagreement or adverse opinion is racist and hateful.
Righteous anger is not hate
Could what the Times and the Democrats tell us is racist and hateful be simply righteous anger? I think what I felt and feel now is righteous anger, not hatred and certainly not racism. Americans have always been generous, kind hearted people to others, but when the others continually show us ill will and continually criticize our founding and our way of life it gets tiring. The print media especially, printed the same story over and over unceasingly. We know, but apparently they don’t know, that just because the New York Times and Washington Post say something is true doesn’t make it so, in fact it probably makes it false.
…and nor is stating the obvious
Any reference to any obvious fact that reflects badly on a protected group is now defined as racism. This tactic is probably designed to prepare us for when we will no longer be allowed to think for ourselves because our elite bettors and our machines will do the thinking for us. Well, while we still can think, I suggest that we do so, and we refuse to include every disagreement in the category of racist hatred. That tactic cheapens and waters down real examples, both historic and current, of actual discrimination.
Leave us alone!
I run a law firm in a large city and I see people all day, five days a week from all walks of life and from many different racial groups common to our country. When see people in my office or I run into them casually in the elevator. I make a point of asking people how they are, what their problems are and what they think is wrong, and almost universally they say the same thing: If they would just leave us alone we would be fine.
By that statement they mean that if the television, newspapers, and especially congress would just stop telling us what a dark, racist, hateful, scary, place this city is we would never think such things about each other to be true, because we all get along just fine otherwise. Those in the media must want us to think that way in order to keep us divided, weak, and dependent on them and the government.
Congress rejects reality
We have to turn our logic and senses off if we are to be accepted among the legions of the woke because reality is not a permissible state in which to live. Unity is not permissible either because the only thing accepted is a divided state of fear, anger, and despair. A recent poll taken by Pew Research concluded that Americans don’t trust the government, the media, and they don’t even trust each other. A low trust environment is potentially disastrous and is a sign of a culture in decline.
Congress has many other failings
Finally folks, these are just some of the reasons that I would vote this Congress the WOAT. There are many others such as the Mueller investigation and Mueller’s testimony. It’s hard to make a case when you have no evidence no matter how determined you are to do it. There are way too many reasons for the time I have with you, but this Congress deserves the award and so it is theirs.
At least that’s the way I see it,
Until next time folks,
This is Darrell Castle.
Darrell Castle is an attorney in Memphis, Tennessee, a former USMC Combat Officer and 2008 Vice Presidential nominee. Darrell gives his unique analysis of current national and international events from a historical and constitutional perspective. You can subscribe to Darrell's weekly podcast at castlereport.us
