Pelosi, Who Pushed Through 'Non-Gendered Language’_Rules_Change,_Calls_Herself_‘Wife ... Mother ... Grandmother ...Daughter’

[Ubiquitous]

On January 4, Democrat members of the House of Representatives, led by
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), adopted new rules that include a
requirement for gender-neutral language in the House Rules, including
the elimination of gendered pronouns and references to “father,” “son,”
“mother” or “daughter.” The vote was strictly along party lines, 217-
206.

The new “non-gendered language” rules were highlighted by critics
online Wednesday when Pelosi used gendered language as she spoke about
the prospective second impeachment of President Trump: “I stand before
you as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a daughter. A daughter whose
father proudly served in this Congress.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1349429700117078016

At the time of the rules change, which included changing the name of
the “Office of the Whistleblower Ombudsman” to the “Office of the
Whistleblower Ombuds,” House Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern
(D-MA) stated, “We made this change for the sake of inclusion, not
exclusion,” as The Hill reported.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called the rules change
“stupid,” tweeting, “This is stupid. Signed, – A father, son, and
brother.”

The text of Pelosi’s speech Wednesday, in which she stated President
Trump “incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion, against our
common country. He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the
nation,” is below:

Thank you, Madam speaker. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for
his leadership. Madam speaker, in his annual address to our
predecessors in Congress in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of
the duty of the patriot in an hour of decisive crisis for the American
people. “Fellow citizens,” he said, “We cannot escape history. We will
be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or
insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through
which we pass will light us down in honor, or dishonor, to the latest
generation. Even we here,” he said, “hold the power and bear the
responsibility.” In the Bible, St. Paul wrote, “Think on these things.”
We must think on what Lincoln told us. We, even here, even us here,
hold the power and bear the responsibility. We, you and I, hold [in]
trust the power that [derives] most directly from the people of the
United States.

And we bear the responsibility to fill that oath that we all swear
before God and before one another. The oath to defend the Constitution
against all enemies, foreign and domestic. So help us, God. We know
that we face enemies of the Constitution. We know we experienced the
insurrection that violated the sanctity of the people’s Capitol, and
attempted to overturn the duly recorded will of the American people.
And we know that the President of the United States incited this
insurrection, this armed rebellion, against our common country. He must
go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.
Since the presidential election in November, an election the president
lost, he has repeatedly lied about the outcome, sowed self-serving
doubt about democracy, and unconstitutionally sought to influence state
officials to repeal reality.

And then came that day of fire we all experienced. The president must
be impeached, and I believe the president must be convicted by the
Senate, a constitutional remedy that will ensure that the Republic will
be safe from this man who was so resolutely determined to tear down the
things that we hold dear, and that hold us together. It gives me no
pleasure to say this. It breaks my heart. It should break your heart.
It should break all of our hearts, for your presence in this hallowed
chamber is testament to your love for our country, for America, and to
your faith in the work of our founders to create a more perfect union.

Those insurrectionists were not patriots. They were not part of a
political base to be catered to and managed. They were domestic
terrorists, and justice must prevail. But they did not appear out of a
vacuum. They were sent here by the president with words such as a cry
to “fight like hell.” Words matter. Truth matters. Accountability
matters. In his public exhortations to [inaudible], the president saw
the insurrectionists not as the foes of freedom, as they are, but as
the means to a terrible goal; the goal of his personally clinging to
power; the goal of thwarting the will of the people; the goal of the
ending in a fiery and bloody clash nearly two and a half centuries of
our democracy. This is not theoretical. And this is not motivated by
partisanship. I stand before you today as an officer of the
constitution, as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

I stand before you as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a daughter, a
daughter whose father proudly served in this Congress. Thomas
D’Alesandro Jr. from Maryland, one of the first Italian Americans to
serve in the Congress. And I stand here before you today as a noblest
of things, a citizen of the United States of America, with my voice and
my vote, with a plea to all of you. Democrats and Republicans, I ask
you to search your souls and answer these questions. Is the president’s
war on democracy in keeping with the Constitution? Were his words and
insurrectionary mob a high crime and misdemeanor? Do we not have the
duty to our oath to do all we constitutionally can do to protect our
nation and our democracy from the appetites and ambitions of a man who
has self-evidently demonstrated that he is a vital threat to liberty,
to self-government, and to the rule of law?

Our country is divided. We all know that. There are lies abroad in the
land spread by a desperate president who feels his power slipping away.
We know that, too. But I know this as well, that we here in this House
have a sacred obligation to stand for truth, to stand up for the
Constitution, to stand as guardians of the Republic. In a speech he was
prepared to give in Dallas on Friday, November 22nd, 1963, President
John F. Kennedy was to say, “We in this country, in this generation,
are by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world
freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and
responsibility.” That we may be worthy.

President Kennedy was assassinated before he could deliver those words
to the nation, but they resonate more even now, in our time, in this
place. Let us be worthy of our power and responsibility, that what
Lincoln thought was the world’s last best hope, the United States of
America, may long survive. My fellow members, my fellow Americans, we
cannot escape history. Let us embrace our duty, fulfill our oath, and
honor the trust of our nation. And we pray that God will continue to
bless America.

--
Trump won.