Today I thought I\u2019d take a little different tack.\u00a0 There is obviously no shortage of news involving Trump and his minions but something happened a couple of days ago that I think is worth talking about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two days ago Congressional Representative Ted Yoho (R \u2013 FL) accosted fellow Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on the steps of the Capitol.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201c The two exchanged some words this week as they were passing one another on the steps of Capitol Hill. Yoho told AOC that it was \u201cdisgusting\u201d for her to suggest that poverty and unemployment was to blame for the rise in crime in New York City during the coronavirus outbreak, and AOC responded by calling him \u201crude.\u201d Then, as alleged by a reporter from The Hill, Yoho also mumbled that AOC was a, \u201cf***ing b**ch.\u201d 1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Representative Yoho subsequently offered an apology of sorts by stating that he was sorry for the \u2018abrupt manner\u2019 of his conversation with Ocasio-Cortez but would not apologize for his passion.\u00a0 And, of course, he denied using the words that were attributed to him.\u00a0 He even cited that he has a wife and daughters and would never use such language.\u00a0\u00a0 The reporter said that he clearly heard the Congressman so you can decide to believe him or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez took to the floor of the House or Representatives to call out Congressman Yoho and his unacceptable behavior.\u00a0 Good for her.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there are those that vehemently disagree with some of Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s policies.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine.\u00a0 That is what democracy is all about \u2013 people having different points of view.\u00a0 But just because you disagree with someone, does not give you the right to accost them and treat them with disrespect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, that is the culture that we find ourselves in these days.\u00a0 The President has a long history of treating women with disrespect.\u00a0 If you look at his cabinet and the majority of people he surrounds himself with, they are by and large, middle-aged and older white men.\u00a0 \u00a0Trump will always attack those that disagree with him but if it happens to be a woman, the attacks become even more virulent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even now, Liz Cheney, a conservative Congresswoman from Wyoming, has dared to criticize Trump and Trump and his minions are attacking her.\u00a0\u00a0 He harassed and belittled his previous Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristin Nielsen.\u00a0 He had the Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, fired when she was viewed as an obstacle to his and Rudy Giuliani\u2019s corrupt schemes.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the President\u2019s long history of misogynistic and bullying behavior towards women coupled with the ongoing and increasing polarization in this country, it is no small wonder that the environment on Capitol Hill has degenerated to a place where Congressmen feel like they have a license to verbally abuse duly elected female members of Congress \u2013 particularly if they are young.\u00a0 Do you really think Congressman Yoho would have made a similar assault on Nancy Pelosi?\u00a0 Not a chance in hell, but yet he felt like he had a license to accost Representative Ocasio-Cortez because she was a young female.\u00a0 I don\u2019t give a shit if you don\u2019t agree with AOC\u2019s policies.\u00a0 As the father of a young woman, I find the behavior appalling and inexcusable.\u00a0\u00a0 I frankly think the Congressman should be censured by the House to send a very strong message that such behavior will not be tolerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am half-way through a book on the history of the Senate and how it devolved from a truly deliberative body into the partisan gridlock spectacle we have today which is almost totally unable to legislate or accomplish much of anything.\u00a0 \u00a0In the past, Americans would see news reports of various legislative bodies from countries around the world where members would get into actual physical confrontations with fists flying \u2013 and we laughed.\u00a0 We are on the verge of descending into that kind of swamp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I truly believe that the future of this country lies in the courage, strength and vision of the women of this country.\u00a0\u00a0 We old white guys have had our chance and we have pretty well fucked it up. \u00a0From the decades-old Mother\u2019s Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to the \u2018yellow mom\u2019s\u2019 who are confronting the Federal officers in Portland, it should be clear that the women of this country are the strength that we need to draw upon during these difficult times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I applaud Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for taking to the floor of the House of Representatives to call out the aberrant and unacceptable behavior of Representative Yoho.\u00a0 As my daughter finishes college and goes out into the world, I can only hope that this type of behavior will be met with appropriate condemnation as opposed to just being accepted as \u2018the norm.\u2019 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today I thought I\u2019d take a little different tack.\u00a0 There is obviously no shortage of news involving Trump and his minions but something happened a couple of days ago that I think is worth talking about. Two days ago Congressional Representative Ted Yoho (R \u2013 FL) accosted fellow Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on the … Continue reading July 24, 2020<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7FBZO-gT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}