Wed, 27 Dec 2023 01:45:20 GMT

Noteworthy anecdote from @vermontgmg.bsky.social in Watergate, A New History: 'Amid the intrigue, few in the White House paid much attention to what would, with hindsight, turn out to be Tuesday’s most consequential political development:

'Far from Washington, in Brooklyn, a political newcomer named Elizabeth Holtzman shocked the establishment by defeating a fifty-year incumbent, Emanuel Celler, in the congressional primary for the state’s 16th District.

'The thirty-year-old Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Radcliffe—who had worked for Mayor John Lindsay’s Parks Department and installed the first rubber padding on the ground of the city’s playgrounds—eked out victory by just 610 votes among 31,000 ballots.

'While the race attracted headlines—both because Celler was the most senior congressman ever to lose a primary and because Holtzman would become the youngest congresswoman ever elected—the biggest ramification of the upset would only become evident months later.

'The defeat of the stubborn and arrogant eighty-four-year-old dean of the House freed up his slot as chair of the Judiciary Committee and opened the door to a new leader, Pete Rodino, whose name would a year later become all but synonymous with the burglary itself.

'“If the impeachment process had gone to the Judiciary Committee under Manny Celler, it would have died there,” Democratic leader Tip O’Neill wrote later.

'No one understood it that night, but as Jimmy Breslin wrote later, “The primary election between Holtzman and Celler could be considered one of the most meaningful elections the nation has had.”'

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 03:56:57 GMT

I am typing words into a representation of a box on a screen. The words, like the box, are made of light. But they are not light words. They dark words. The words are dark, and the screen is light. Light as a white cloud in a bright blue sky.

The words fly from my fingers like birds. Thread Writer.

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