Time to go home

[Kevin]

The Hill is reporting that Dianne Feinstein, last year, expressed confusion about Kamala Harris being present, presiding over the Senate to cast a tie-breaking vote. "What's she doing here?", Feinstein asked.

On the one hand, Feinstein is asking something that many have wondered. But I think that, snark aside, the people of California need a better representative for their state.

Time to go home, Senator. You've done well for your state but it is time for a new generation to get to work.

[UTAH]

Late to the party - just saw this.

Feinstein has set many political records and pulled San Francisco out of an assassination morass. She proudly proclaims her Judaism after her family became Christian (required of Russian Jews in Saint Petersburg). She's behind an attempted Federal Assault Weapons Ban after the Sandy Hook shootings.

But, that was then... it is time for her to retire. That takes nothing away from her incredible political career.

Hunter

[TriGuy]

They are pushing Oprah as her replacement

[Kevin]

Back in the 60s, a famous Hollywood hoofer (actually, quite a good song and dance man, his musicals were solid B performances) named George Murphy ran for Senator from California. A TV show at the time parodied the week's news, "That Was The Week That Was" and Tom Lehrer, a Harvard math prof, came up with the funniest songs about the absurdity of the times we lived in. Here's his take on actors and actresses standing for political office:

Hollywood's often tried to mix
Show business with politics
From Helen Gahagan
To Ronald Reagan?
But Mr. Murphy is the star
Who's done the best by far

Oh, gee, it's great!
At last we've got a senator who can really sing and dance
We can't expect America to win against its foes
With no one in the Senate who can really tap his toes

The movies that you've seen
On your television screen
Show his legislative talents at a glance
Should Americans pick crops? George says: "No!"
'Cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low
And after all, even in Egypt, the pharaohs
Had to import Hebrew braceros

Think of all the musicals we have in store
Imagine: Broadway Melody of Nineteen Eighty-Four
Yes, now that he's a Senator, he's really got the chance
To give the public a song and dance!

me again - "bracero", for those that don't recall, was a reference to the Bracero Program, which brought guests workers temporarily from Mexico to pick fruits and vegetables in the Southwest US. You might remember the song "Deportees" by Woody Guthrie, which documented the tragedy of a plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon. The plane was filled with men and women from the Bracero Program and the lyrics are haunting:

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?

me again - as someone who grew up with his immigrant forbears, this song has never failed to make me tear up. I know personally the struggle and pain of having to leave your family and homeland to try for a better life in America.