Ben Cline and his Republican colleagues in Congress have no positive agenda for the country.
Their only plan is to:
• Oppose legislation to help Americans provide for their families, care for their children, aid seniors, end voter suppression and remove obstacles to union organizing– and hope voters don’t notice.
• Try to distract voters with phony culture-war nonsense and scaremongering. This explains the latest posts on Cline’s campaign Facebook page.
First came this:
According to at least one poll, the vast majority of West Virginians support Build Back Better if it includes raising taxes on the richest Americans and corporations, regardless of Senator Joe Manchin’s position.
Bette Midler spoke (stupidly) for herself and has apologized. Meanwhile Cline’s Republican colleague Paul Gosar posted a video depicting him killing one of Cline’s favorite targets, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and refused to apologize. But that was OK with Cline, who voted NO on a motion to censure him.
It’s easier for Cline to take a shot at that favorite rightwing target, the “Hollywood elite,” than to confront the outrages of his fellow Republicans, let alone the real and excessive power of the corporate elite who help fund his campaigns.
A little later Cline posted this:
In response to a comment asking Cline to define Critical Race Theory and provide specific, proven examples of Critical Race Theory being taught in Virginia public schools, he (or his staff) posted this from the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal– which does neither.
For the first time since March 2020, Congressman Cline has scheduled in-person town hall meetings: for Monday December 13 in Amherst County, Buena Vista and Highland County.
See below for more information and registration.
Constituents will have the chance to question him about his vote AGAINST the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, among other matters.
In an interview with WSLS TV, Congressman Cline blamed the current worker shortage on vaccine mandates.
“I’ve been traveling around to manufacturers all around the area, and that’s the first thing they say is we’re having trouble getting employees, and these mandates will have us lose employees at a critical time. It’ll make it that much harder for our economy to recover,” Cline said.
…..
“Businesses are just struggling to get back on their feet to end they’re having a hard time getting employees to put businesses at the risk of having to lose a quarter or a third of their employees. It might just be enough to put them under,” Cline said.
In fact as of October, only 5 percent of workers said they had quit their jobs rather than get vaccinated. And a lot of major companies have imposed their own vaccine mandates regardless of government requirements.
It was only last June that Cline was blaming the labor shortage on temporary unemployment payments making workers too lazy to take any undesirable low-wage jobs on offer.
But states that cut off these benefits early failed to achieve a major increase in employment, CNBC reported in August. Instead they “fueled a nearly $2 billion cut in household spending, potentially hurting their local economies.”
The data suggests unemployment benefits aren’t playing a big role in hiring challenges and that other factors are having a larger impact — a similar thrust to other recent research analyzing the policy decisions.
The real solution to labor shortages– along with wider access to child care— may shock Cline and others with such contempt for low-wage workers.
The Build Back Better plan in Congress would enable millions of parents to obtain affordable child care and make it possible for them to enter the workforce.
But Congressman Cline calls Build Back Better “an abomination.”
The following ad, sponsored by the Lexington and Rockbridge County Democratic Committees, appeared in the Nov. 24 edition of The News-Gazette, which circulates in Lexington, Rockbridge and Buena Vista.
Enough of letting Congressman Cline’s evasion, deceit and failures go unanswered!
Feel free use it in any way you can to help spread the word about Cline’s utter inability to stand up for the people of the Sixth District.
The House voted Wednesday to censure Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) for tweeting an anime video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and swinging swords at President Biden — a move that comes amid growing worries about violent political rhetoric 10 months after a mob of former president Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol.
The 223-to-207 vote, with one member voting present, marks the first time in more than a decade that the House has censured one of its members. The resolution also removes Gosar from his assignments on the House Oversight and Natural Resources committees.
“Disguising death threats against a member of Congress and a president of the United States in an animated video does not make those death threats any less real or less serious,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said during Wednesday’s debate, describing GOP leaders’ refusal to reprimand Gosar as “outrageous.”
Not outrageous enough for Congressman Cline, who joined all but two of his fellow House Republicans to vote NO on censuring Gosar.
Some Republicans have pointed to questionable comments by Democrats. But as Amber Phillips of The Post writes, “none of them have used social media to depict violence against a Republican colleague.”
Many more Republicans than Democrats in recent weeks have alluded to armed revolution and justified violence. On this Cline has been utterly silent.
But Cline did denounce the FBI on the far-right NewsMax channel for tracking the dangerous increase in violent threats against school boards and teachers over masking requirements and teaching about racism.
Predictably, Congressman Cline was one of the vast majority of House Republicans who voted NO on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package which was passed Friday and sent to President Biden for his signature.
Cline protested that he’s all for infrastructure, as long as it doesn’t mean anything other than “roads, bridges, transit and rail”– a view more appropriate to the 19th century– and that that the bill “prioritized the Green New Deal and social justice programs.” He didn’t specify which parts of the package did that.
As even Cline must be dimly aware, in the 21st century there is more to infrastructure than roads, bridges, transit and rail. This includes the power grid, water and sewer systems and broadband, all of which the bill funds. So what does Cline object to? The $15 billion for electric charging stations and electric school buses? Who knows? Probably not even Cline.
But don’t worry, Congressman. We’ll make sure your constituents know about every project in the Sixth District funded by the infrastructure bill that puts a lot of people to work at good wages and improves the lives, the health and the safety of the families in our district. And we’ll especially make sure they know that you voted AGAINST it.
In recent House votes, Congressman Cline has again demonstrated the huge gap between his pious rhetoric and his actual beliefs.
–Cline is a vocal advocate of “law and order.” But last week he voted along with all but nine principled Republicans AGAINST holding Donald Trump’s ally Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the bipartisan committee investigating the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol– and specifically Bannon’s conversations with then-president Donald Trump before the attack.
As an editorial in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted:
For anyone who still needs it, most Republican House members last week provided more evidence that the GOP — once the “law-and-order” party — is now the party that coddles criminals.
By overwhelmingly voting against holding Donald Trump crony Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for his refusal to testify in the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, this shameful roster (which included all six of Missouri’s GOP House members, and all four of Virginia’s Republican congressmen) is once again running interference for a lawless ex-president who tried to overthrow a valid election.
The next time Cline claims to support “law and order,” the only proper response is mocking laughter.
–Cline has repeatedly claimed to be staunchly “pro-life.” In fact he is pro-forced birth and really doesn’t care much what happens to mothers and their children after birth (or even beforebirth).
He proved this again when he voted with most Republicans AGAINST the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act.
The Break Time for Nursing Mothers, passed in 2010, requires employers to provide reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space for breastfeeding employees to pump during the work day. While this was an important step, nearly one in four women of childbearing age are not covered by the Break Time law.
The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act (S. 1658/H.R. 3110) would strengthen the Break Time for Nursing Mothers law by expanding workplace protections for lactating workers, clarifying employers’ obligations under the law, and ensuring breastfeeding mothers have access to appropriate remedies.
The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act was introduced in both Houses of Congress with bipartisan support in May 2021 and advanced in both the House and Senate Committee in June 2021. The bill is supported by over 160 organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Education Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. On October 22, 2021, the House version of the PUMP Act (H.R. 3110) was passed with a strong, bipartisan vote of 276-149.
As Ben Cline’s CPAC buddy and benefactor Congressman Matt Gaetz drifts into neo-Nazi territory– endorsing “white replacement theory” and smearing the Anti-Defamation League, which for 108 years has stood against antisemitism and other forms of bigotry– I can’t help wondering if Cline ever returned Gaetz’s generous $2,000 campaign donation.
Cline Watch 