Why, oh why would the first woman to ever rule the House want to change anything?
"Pentagon officials are bracing for a fight with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over her desire to allow lawmakers’ adult children to tag along on taxpayer-funded travel for free."
Rightwingers are sounding the alarm!
Over at Bluey Blog, Robert B. Bluey, of the ultra rightwing Heritage Foundation, says the Dems want "a free ride." (To emphasize his point, Bluey links to the debunked rightwing lies about Pelosi and the military plane.)
Bluey suggests that Pelosi has spent too much time with the children. Why the hell can't women be just like men? Why the hell can't Pelosi be happy with the way the men do things?
The Hill reports that "taxpayer watchdog groups and ethics advocates" such as Public Citizen concur with the righties that this is all about a free ride!
Craig Holman of the manly Public Citizen complains: "One of the things she was praised for when she came in was her sweeping reforms on gifts and travel. It is very disheartening if she is, in fact, backsliding on this."
In other words, if you want "a free ride" you better have a legalized sexual relationship with a Congressperson (but not a gay one!).
No sex, no free ride.
And if you don't happen to have a spouse? Too bad.
Presumably a spouse in tow serves a useful purpose when Congresspersons travel to all those countries that hate us. If that's true, then surely another family member, an adult child, would serve the same purpose.
It just so happens that in the male dominated culture as we know it, wives are generally free to travel with and be at the beck and call of husbands (except for Howard Dean's wife!).
Husbands, however, are an altogether different story. Husbands generally have better things to do.
If men can bring their wives, then why the hell can't women bring their children? Oh, I forgot, that's not the way the men have always done it.
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