Off The Publisher’s Desk – 9-2-2020
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Speaker of the House!
I have often spoke about our current “Speaker of the House” Nancy Pelosi and have called her the Wicked Witch of the West. I promised that I would not call any other politicians names and I have held to that.
I subscribe to a firm that handles cartoons for publication called Creators, who handles cartoons drawn by Tom Stiglich, which created the cartoon that we are printing this week that features Pelosi. When I saw that cartoon last week, I knew that Tom had read my mind
She is the only woman to hold that position and it is her second time as speaker. The reason that I bring her up at this point is, she has been leader of the House since January of last year and the only thing that has happened is that the House spent million of dollars trying to impeach the president while they knew or should have known that they could not get the 66 senators to vote for impeachment.
So their time and energy was wasted. She has control of the members of her party and they will not make any waves that she has not approved first. I have to give the congress credit with the Payroll Protection Act, but she is holding up a second round of that program.
She has not got anything done because most of the bills that were geared to the pandemic, she also wanted to add millions of dollars for other frivolous programs that have nothing to do with Covid-19. She now wants billions of dollars to bail out cities and states that have seen riots, looting and burning, while no money for police. But, I have a hard time seeing my tax money going to Minneapolis as the people in charge up there let the bad people have their way and did nothing to stop them from destroying part of Minneapolis.
Pelosi’s leadership leaves a lot of room for improvement, but the last two Republican Speakers did not impress me that much either. Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, who I had figured would set the world on fire or at least Washington D. C., but he did not or could not get his party moving and the same goes for John Boehner who resigned back in October of 2015.
Now Pelosi, at 80 years old is the third highest paid political figure with an annual salary of $223,500, plus benefits, including free air faire, and that put her right behind the president and vice president. Of course President Trump does not take any salary. Those benefits were also granted to the two former Republican speakers. I just wonder how much of our tax money goes to keep Washington open?
But, Pelosi, whose net worth is, estimated somewhere near a hundred million dollars, and she lives in a five million dollar estate with a vineyard in California, she could donated her salary to Minneapolis.
If Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, had come out months ago and urged restraint and condemned the violent actions of the mobs that destroyed many of our cities things may have had a much happier ending.
But, on to another important matter, last week a black father was shot and killed by a police officer in Kenosha. As of yet we do not know all the details of this event, but the Democratic party of Wisconsin was quick to point blame.
In their statement, released just hours after the shooting, the party states; “This evening (August 23rd) in Wisconsin, Kenosha Police shot an unarmed Black father, reportedly in front of his children. It’s sickening, infuriating tragedy, and it’s a symptom of the deadly disease of white supremacy and racism that must be confronted and defeated in our state and nation.”
Their news release also states: “We don’t yet know the details of this situation.” A day later they put the entire blame for the shooting on the President, still not yet knowing the details of the event. They were quick to blame the police and they were not waiting for the details.
Our United State Senator Ron Johnson put it right by saying: “I support a full and thorough investigation into the events leading up to the officer-involved shooting in Kenosha. While emotions are understandably running high in the Kenosha community and elsewhere, I urge any demonstrators to remain peaceful and give our justice system the opportunity to work.”
A couple days later after two people had been killed in Kenosha, Johnson wrote: “It is tragedy that two people had to lose their lives before Gov. Evers was willing to set aside politics and accept President Trump’s help to restore order in Kenosha. Violence and chaos like we’ve seen the last three nights do nothing to advance justice, and they drown out the voices of those protesting peacefully. Going forward, our focus should be on healing, for Jacob Blake, for the lives turned upside down in the rioting, and for the community of Kenosha.”
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Thursday requested other states to bring additional National Guard troops, equipment, and resources to Kenosha to support local officials.
Maybe the governor should have requested these resources a week earlier, which might have helped stop the violence.
But, the Governor did tour Kenosha last Thursday and praised the people of the community saying, “They’re ready to roll up their sleeves. I couldn’t be more proud of that effort on their part.”
But, early intervention, may have kept the damage and human suffering to a minimum.
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton