A few months ago I reported how wackadoodle Rep. Jeff Flake sent out a press release attacking his congressional colleagues for supporting some measly funds to help out the International Mother's Day Shrine in Grafton, West Virginia, on today's centennial of the start of Mother's Day there by Anna Jarvis in 1908.
Last week, Jeff Flake, crazy as ever, tried to take back a vote he'd apparently cast in error supporting this year's observance of a day honoring American mothers. His fellow House Republicans joined him.
Dana Milbank reports in the Washington Post:
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.
It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."
By voting against it?
I guess it's clear now that Rep. Jeff Flake really does hate American mothers.
Perhaps Sigmund Freud could tell us why, but he's dead -- so the source of our wacky congressman's animus against the middle class moms of Arizona's Sixth Congressional District and the rest of America, proven with hundreds of his votes against working families, will remain a mystery.
Thanks to Rep. Kathy Castor for challenging mom-hating pols like Jeff Flake. Back when I lived in Florida, I had dinner with Kathy and her husband at the Tampa home of her wonderful mom, Betty, who was then president of the University of South Florida, and whose U.S. Senate candidacy I worked for in 2004. If only our district was represented by a Democrat like either of the Castor moms.
Maybe miracles can happen this November.
Happy Mother's Day to my own wonderful mom in Apache Junction and to every mom in our district and elsewhere.
0 comments:
Post a Comment