I Propose an Anti-war Consortium, for Speaker of the US House

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

Choosing a Speaker? The only guidance from the Constitution comes from Article I, sec 2: “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers,” and Article I, sec 5: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings.”

In short, it’s Freedom City. The 435 members of the House can go about the matter of chusing a Speaker howsoever they wish.

I say it is also Creativity City today, now that the silly habit of one hundred years has been broken — that being that the “Party” with the most seats would nominate a guy and then all would obsequiously bow to it. (Answer this question: Have you ever met a more obsequious bunch of people than congressmen acting en masse?)

Yesterday I published an article (1) proposing that Rep Tom Massie be chusen (not my word) as Speaker. Main reason: he is a constitutionalist to the Nth degree. He also thinks for himself (like wow!) and is super smart. Won the Inventor’s contest as an undergrad at MIT. Let’s see what he can invent for us.

No, wait, I said in a previous article (2) that the Speaker’s job is to run the meetings, not to be the boss. In fact, I recommended myself as a Layperson Speaker (3), and swore neutrality on the issues. (Hmmm.)

Today, after the embarrassment of the House wasting all its precious time catering to Kevin McCarthy’s needs (I bet he is under pressure from “without” to land the job, betcha, betcha), we should go creative. I offer as a really nifty solution, a double-holder of the job — a consortium of Rep Tom Massie (R-KY, age 51) and Rep Barbara Lee (D-CA, age 76.) He is as White as snow, and she is as Black as the ace of spades. (As we used to say before we woke.)

His record is all conservative, hers is all “progressive.” But they have something wonderful in common. They are anti-war. Ms Lee was once an aide to Rep Ron Dellums who fought, in court, for us not to do Desert Storm in 1991. That may be where Barbara learned to take Article I, sec 8, Clause 11 seriously: “The Congress shall have Power to declare War.”

In 2001, she was the only, the absolute only, House member, five minutes after the twin towers fell (OK, 3 days after it, on September 14) to say “No. Don’t let this House give W Bush the power to drag us into war.”

The other 434 milquetoasts (Massie had not yet joined; he got elected in 2012) said “Yes, sir Yes sir, three bags full sir,” to the AUMF — the Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Here it is, not only in its original form but in the current version, as the Milquetoasts renew it every year:

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

See my 2017 article entitled “Rep Barbara Lee Sunsetted the AUMF but the Sun Rose Again.” (4) Correct. She almost got a change in the aumf but not enough votes. Consider how wide the aumf wording is, how unMadisonian. The Legislative Branch said “Chief, we don’t mind at all what you do. You wish to kill Afghans because a Saudi named bin Laden reportedly hides in a cave in that country? Go on, no problemo. What’s a little war among friends?

Massie, too, is antiwar. So he and Lee would make a lovely consortium. What citizen would not be relieved to see the word anti-war up there in the firmament? This is from Wiki:

“Massie was one of nine lawmakers to sign a letter to Trump requesting a meeting with him and urging him to sign “Senate Joint Resolution 7, to end unauthorized US military participation in the Saudi-led coalition’s armed conflict against Yemen’s Houthi forces, initiated in 2015 by the Obama administration.”

I guess Massie did not like to see 17 million people being starved to death. And note that this Saudi-helper routine was “unauthorized.” Where was Congress’ duty to fight a balance-of-power turf war, huh? Who did “authorize” it anyway?

Speaking of Israel, Massie probably did not rise for the 30 standing ovations Congressmen gave to Netanyahu in a single speech (5). (Nothing embarrasses these people.) I am proud that Massie went against the proposal to curtail federal funding to universities that participated in BDS, a boycott of investment in Israel — on First Amendment grounds!

Does this and other items mentioned above mean that Massie is on some kind of Muslim payroll? No, he — like Lee — is a Constitution supporter. Together they could make the parchment sing.

Speaking of that, the noisiest balance-of-power guy, Louis Fisher, a Library of Congress person, wrote an article with David Adler in 1998, entitled “The War Powers Resolution: Time To Say Goodbye.” (6)

And Massie gave a big Tsk Tsk to Trump’s strike on Syria based on an alleged chemical attack by Assad on his own people. (Show me one, just one “attack on a leader’s own people” in living memory that was not a false flag. It’s diagnostic, Folks, please catch up on the research.)

Darling Readers, if you are sick of the whole damn thing, would you please tweet this article around? I don’t actually think the Massie-Lee Consortium is going to happen, but it would set the other 433 to thinkin’. And as far as war is concerned, we goaded Russia with our spree of NATO accessions, did we not?

Anyway it’s your fault. It’s my fault. It’s not Congress’s fault since there’s no there there.

Seriously. They ain’t there.

Oh, one more thing, as we eagerly await tomorrow’s news from SCOTUS in the Brunson case. Loy Brunson says, in a good interview with Greg Hunter (7), that his brother’s case may be only the second Rule 11 case to have occurred in history. That’s where SCOTUS let’s you skip over lower courts in an emergency. I think the previous invoking of Rule 11 was done by CONGRESSWOMAN Elizabeth Holtzman, and some Air Force officers, to get a halt to the unauthorized bombing of Cambodia.

So I’m wrong. There is sometimes a there there.

God, please let it be now.

1. https://granitegrok.com/blog/2023/01/lets-have-rep-thomas-massie-r-ky-age-52-as-speaker-of-the-house
2. https://granitegrok.com/mg_manchester/2022/11/one-way-to-de-westminsterize-congress-a-layperson-speaker-of-the-house
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anjon1r-ihI
4. https://gumshoenews.com/rep-barbara-lee-sunsetted-the-aumf-but-the-sun-rose-again/
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF3lvAfHJM8
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CYqs-sM94Q
7. https://gumshoenews.com/earth-shaking-supreme-court-case-brunson-v-adams-greg-hunter-interviews-loy-brunson/