Thursday, February 16, 2017

Representative Jim Jordan: Tough Guy from Lima

Saw Jim Jordan of Ohio's 4th Congressional district interviewed by Chris Cuomo this morning as I was running on my treadmill.



Jimmy was a great high school and college wrestler and he wants you to remember that so he only rarely wears a jacket and tie, just the shirtsleeves. Not only does he look more like a jock, but  he can look like the friend of the working man. His many fans are waiting for the moment when he'll stride onto the House floor in his wrestling singlet.

I remembered him from his questioning of Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings, which he considers one of the high points of his Congressional career because he thought he had scored a huge take down of the Secretary, and had her on her back the entire match; at least that's the way Congressman Jordan remembers it.

As I remembered it, Ms. Clinton scored escape after escape, and she reversed him every time she wanted to. The only person she made look sillier was that bimbo Congresswoman from Alabama who asked her if she had spent the night alone after she left the State Department that fateful night and when Secretary Clinton said she had, the Congresswoman inveighed, in her best Perry Mason tone, "You were alone? The whole night?" At which point Ms. Clinton broke into a grin, and without having to say a word, her face conveyed the statement, "Yes, you silly twit. I was alone. Did you think I went home to celebrate the death of four American foreign service officers by hopping into bed with General Petraeus? And if I had, do you think I'd tell you about it?"

Other than that moment, the best moments were her dismantling of Jimmy boy Jordan, who  got more and more befuddled as he stumbled his way through his questions, in his shirt, looking like he really wanted to be in his wrestling singlet from when he won the NCAA title, but the singlet  would have looked a little odd with the tie.

Reading about Jim, it turns out he has sponsored only one bill in his 10 years in Congress--a sweet little thing to make it easier for the citizens and drug lords of Washington, D.C. to buy and carry and use guns in the city.  I imagine all the hoppers and touts in the drug trade on the corners saying, "Now, that guy is a friend of the working man! I got my gun, no hassle at all!"

Congressman Jordan's district has a factory which makes Abrams tanks, which the Army did not want made but he pushed it through to keep his constituents at their jobs making even more money with less pulmonary injury than those coal miners in Senator McConnell's state. Lima, Ohio, have no fear. Your gravy train runs.
You might not want 'em, but we make tanks here in Ohio!

Mr. Jordan hates planned parenthood, loves guns, hates abortions and he's the head of the "Freedom Caucus." Don't you just love Republican naming prowess? I mean, who wouldn't be proud to be a member of the "Freedom Caucus."

Talking about repealing Obamacare, he said the marketplace would take care of health insurance, just the way it had before Obamacare. Oh, yes, I remember that marketplace in New Hampshire where there was only one insurance company in the entire state offering health insurance, but now with Obamacare there are five.  
Talk about a marketplace.  
And Mr. Jordan noted that premiums went up with Obamacare and insurance companies dropped out of the market but he would guarantee in the replacement nobody would be denied for pre-existing conditions, unless they never had bought health insurance, which is only fair. And, oh yes, we'd have health insurance bank accounts for a rainy day, so when you went into the hospital for your $500,000 heart surgery you can drain that account--which might have, say a tenth of that--but it would cover the bill for the housekeeping services during your stay. Or your family could use it to cover your funeral.

The thing about Mr. Jordan which is so depressing is simply how stupid the guy is. Ever notice how enervating it is to be around really stupid people? Especially people who think they are not really stupid, just under appreciated?

That's the trouble with democracy: You can go to Congress and there you have to spend your day with people like Jeff Sessions, Mitch McConnell, Louie Gomhert, Trey Gowdy, Mark Sanford, Lindsey Graham and Jim Jordan. All the Gerrymander progeny. I can only imagine.
I'd rather spend the day in a day care center for delinquent three year olds. At least the kids tend to be cute, and there is some hope for them, that they might actually get smarter and more interesting as they mature. But not so much with these knucklehead Jim Jordan types.

Was a time when you could got to Congress and lock horns with men like John Randolph of Virginia, who might observe that your argument shines and stinks like a rotten mackerel by moonlight, or he observes a state can no more  give up part of its sovereignty than a woman can give up part of her virtue. 
 Now there's a man who you can be pleased to be insulted by. 






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