Mary Miller and the four seasons

Mary Miller (R, IL-15), my representative in Congress, is not the sharpest knife in the block. Here is what Miller said on the House floor a few days ago:

“The farmers in my district recognize climate change as summer, winter, spring, and fall.”

The context: her effort to defund USDA Climate Hubs. Pete Buttigieg’s comment on Miller’s comment: “Are we really doing this?”

C-SPAN says that Miller was making a joke. Not so. I think she was reading a line that was meant to sound smart and sassy, but she wasn’t joking. She doesn’t recognize climate change as a reality. Her lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters: 2%.

Mary, goddammit, you’re willfully ignorant. And you make the 754,000+ residents of your massive, gerrymandered district look ignorant too. Only some of us are.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

[The transcription is accurate: Miller had the seasons out of order.]

Hitler Moms

News from Indiana, as reported in The Indianapolis Star:

The Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national organization recently listed as an "extremist group" by a civil rights watchdog, apologized Thursday morning after it launched a newsletter called The Parent Brigade Wednesday that featured a quote from Adolf Hitler on its front cover.

The quotation was a variation on the words Representative Mary Miller (R, IL-15) spoke on January 5, 2020: “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’” The Moms have it as “He, alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”

The Star also reports on two other appearances of these words in recent American discourse, on a billboard in 2014 and in a 2023 Facebook post by a member of a Colorado Springs school aboard.

It never occurs to these dangerous people that Hitler did have the youth — the Hitler Youth, as I reminded Mary Miller in 2022. But as I pointed out to her, he did not have the future. And neither will the Moms.

Notice who’s speaking later this week at an event the Moms are promoting: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Heather Cox Richardson on the Second Amendment

From the May 6 installment of Letters from an American:

For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.

I’m sending a copy of the article to my representative in Congress, Mary Miller, who made her Washington debut by announcing that “Hitler was right on one thing.” I doubt that she’ll read what Richardson has to say. But perhaps some bored young aide tasked with opening the mail will read Richardson and find something to think about.

Mary Miller, going places

“My” representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15) — and how I tire of having to type the quotation marks — is headed to Chicago — a city she has often reviled — for a fundraiser. It’s hardly coincidental that she just announced the creation of Congressional Family Caucus.

And here I have to take issue with a nearby NPR affiliate, the same one that last February described Vladimir Putin as beginning “peacekeeping operations in Ukraine.”

From the station’s news item:

Miller says she believes Congress has a moral obligation to protect the natural family from what she calls the radical left, which wants to destroy it.

A possible revision:

Miller says she believes Congress has a moral obligation to protect what she calls “the natural family” from what she calls ”the radical left,“ which she says wants to destroy it.

As I’ve already suggested to the station, it’s not appropriate to repeat Miller’s language as if it has an obvious, uncontested basis in reality. I e-mailed; they said they’ll change their report.

Miller’s recent tweets refer to “the natural family” and “the traditional family, ordained by God,” and she invokes Deuteronomy 6 as a model for parent-child relations. Nice work of cherry-picking, Mary. Deuteronomy 21:18–21 has some interesting guidance for parents. In the King James Version:

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: 19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And there’s lots more.

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All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

A letter to Dr. Laura Schlessinger

From Letters of Note, a letter from Kent Ashcraft, a musician, with some hilarious questions for Dr. Laura Schlessinger about biblical do s and don’t s. Here’s one question:

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Leviticus 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

Context, from Wikipedia:

Over the years, Schlessinger expressed opposition to homosexuality based on biblical scripture, at one point referring to homosexual behavior as “products of a biological disorder.” Her rhetoric eventually prompted an open letter penned in the year 2000 responding to her position that used text of Bible decrees.

I can think of at least one congressional representative to whom I’d like to send this letter, Illinois’s own Mary Miller. She’s already ranting about the Respect for Marriage Act, which she calls the “Anti-Marriage Act.”

[Whatever became of Laura Schlessinger? She’s on satellite radio. And she really has a doctorate, in physiology, from Columbia University. Holy smokes! No pun on the burning bull.]

Another Mary Miller vote

I should no longer be surprised that “my” representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), takes the wrong position on everything. But I’m still sometimes surprised. She just voted against S. 4524, the Speak Out Act,

a bill to limit the judicial enforceability of predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement contract clauses relating to disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Voting yea: 215 Democrats and 100 Republicans. Voting nay: 109 Republicans. Not voting: 4 Democrats, 4 Republicans.

There’s something about Mary.

In better news, the Respect for Marriage Act is is on its way to becoming law.

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Yet another letter to Mary Miller

[Click for a genuinely readable view.]

A note for the non-local: Mary Miller’s husband Chris Miller, our representative in the Illinois state legislature, runs a father-son Christian-themed camp with considerable emphasis on guns. But the camp doesn’t allow participants to bring their own weapons: “For safety reasons, please do not bring any firearms or archery equipment.”

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All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Mary Miller, on it

Representative Mary Miller (R, IL-15) continues to use her official Twitter account to warn parents about the danger of fentanyl in Halloween candy. The warnings tie into the claim that we have an “open border.” “These pills are deadly, and parents should be vigilant and carefully check their child’s Halloween candy this year,” she warns in her latest tweet on this topic.

This year? Mary, a good parent checks the candy every year.

But the fear of fentanyl in Halloween candy is, according to a toxicologist and addiction specialist, “a moral panic.” And a scholar of urban legends calls Halloween fentanyl just that — an urban legend, like razor-blade-filled apples. See this The Washington Post article: “The media and the Halloween ‘rainbow fentanyl’ scare.”

Meanwhile, Mary Miller has said nothing about the attack on Paul Pelosi today and the conspiracy-driven mindset that prompted it.

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Mary Miller in The New York Times

Congresswoman Mary Miller (R, IL-15) begins and ends this New York Times article: “For Trump’s Backers in Congress, ‘Devil Terms’ Help Rally Voters.”

Some excerpts:

As Representative Mary Miller embarked on her first congressional campaign, she described herself in salt-of-the-earth, all-American terms: a mother, grandmother and farmer who embodied the “Midwestern values of faith, family and freedom.”

“Hard work, using God-given talents, and loving each other well,” a voice declared over video clips of Ms. Miller, a 63-year-old Illinois Republican, embracing her family, praying and walking on her farm in an ad in early 2020.

“In the world today,” the ad continued, “we could use a lot more of this.”

But there is another side to Ms. Miller’s wholesome image. Since entering Congress, she has routinely vilified Democrats and liberals, calling them “evil” communists beholden to China who want to “destroy” America and its culture. And President Biden’s plan, she seethed on Twitter this spring, is to “flood our country with terrorists, fentanyl, child traffickers, and MS-13 gang members.”

Ms. Miller’s inflammatory words underscore the extent to which polarizing rhetoric is now entrenched among Republicans in the House of Representatives, especially among those like Ms. Miller who voted against certifying the Biden victory, according to an examination by The New York Times of partisan language over the past 10 years.

And:

On social media, Ms. Miller of Illinois regularly quotes the Bible and writes “Happy Sunday” messages to her followers. She posted one such tweet while taking respite from the campaign trail in June, sharing a photo of herself on the sofa with seven of her grandchildren. She wrote, “I am so blessed!”

Five days later, Ms. Miller’s Twitter took a different tone. “The Left tells our children a hopeless message that they do not come from God, they are not born for any purpose, and they cannot obtain salvation,” she wrote, before pledging to defend the right to bear arms.

And:

Last December, Ms. Miller tweeted a picture of a cloven-hoofed sculpture that the Satanic Temple, a self-described nontheistic religious group, had installed near a Christmas tree and Nativity scene inside the Illinois State Capitol. A sign said the state, which is led by Democrats, could not “legally censor” such controversial installations under the First Amendment.

Ms. Miller turned it into a line of attack — tweeting that “the left cheers this” because they “are not only an anti-American party, they are an anti-Christian party.”

“We’re at war for the heart & soul of our country,” she added, concluding, “Christ is on our side and we will prevail!”

And — no surprise — Miller “did not respond to repeated requests for comment.” Nor does she answer questions from local media. Nor does she reply to letters from constiuents, at least not to my letters.

The article explains “devil terms,” quoting Jennifer Mercieca, a scholar of political rhetoric: “things that are so unquestionably bad that you can’t have a debate about them.” Which reminds me: not only does Miller refuse to answer media questions and constituent letters; she has also refused to debate her Democratic challenger, Paul Lange.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

[The link to the Times article is a “gift” link — it won’t count against the paywall.]

A letter to “my” representative

[Click for a much larger view.]

I don’t expect an answer. But I take pleasure in writing to “my” representative. She won’t read it, but someone in her office might. And might then have something to think about.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Where’s Mary?

From Axios: “Mary Miller missing from IL GOP messaging.” She was missing from a Republican Day rally at the Illinois State Fair:

When reporters repeatedly asked IL GOP chair Don Tracy about her absence at the rally, he responded, “I don’t know where Mary Miller is.”

Given Miller’s Adolf Hitler moment and her celebration of “white life,” it may be that those in charge thought it would be safer not to have her present. Or perhaps she chose not to show up because she might have to answer a question from a news outlet. She doesn’t do that. (She refuses. Sometimes she hides.) Nor does she answer letters from at least some of her constituents. I’ve written four, the first of which had no response but put me on her newsletter list. (They must have had an e-mail address for me from her predecessor, John Shimkus.) I immediately unsubscribed. The other three letters had no response.

Regular readers of OCA will know that Mary Miller is “my” representative in Congress.

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A letter to our representative

It would be disgraceful not to write:

The Honorable Mary Miller
1529 Longworth House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Congresswoman Miller:

Given the recent carnage in Highland Park, we want to ask:

You insist that the right to bear arms “shall not be abridged.” You repeat that phrase without regard for the rest of the sentence in which it appears, and without regard for what the word “arms” could have referred to when the text was written.

Antonin Scalia, as you may know, thought that the Second Amendment applies to hand-held weapons. No cannons for personal use! Are hand-held rocket launchers permitted under the Second Amendment? He said that would be a case to decide very carefully.

So here’s a question for you:

Do you believe that hand-held rocket launchers are permitted under the Second Amendment?

And if not, why do you believe that other weapons of war are?

And if we’re talking about rights that shall not be abridged, what about the right of a small child to attend a Fourth of July parade without losing both parents to a person wielding a weapon of war?

It seems to us that your willingness to protect life begins and ends in the uterus.

Sincerely, &c.

We don’t expect a reply. We had no reply to our last letter, asking what Miller had done or would be doing to encourage vaccination against COVID-19. Our congressional district still has the lowest rate of vaccination in the state.

If we get a reply, I’ll report back.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Mary Miller has tweeted

For contrast: here’s what my gun-loving representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), tweeted today. This tweet appeared hours after the murders in Highland Park. No other tweets have followed:

Independence Day reminds us of the reasons we defend our statues, our monuments, our liberty, and our history.

We are blessed to live in a land that is free because of the brave. We are born free, endowed by God with rights no government can take away.

Happy Independence Day! pic.twitter.com/nXoMEazjAz

— Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) July 4, 2022

The tweet is online, for now. But in case someone has the after-the-fact sense to take it down, here’s a screenshot:


I cannot help seeing the fireworks behind her as gunfire.

And what is this language about “our statues, our monuments” meant to suggest, Mary? Oh wait — I know what it’s meant to suggest. And what do you mean by “our liberty, and our history”? Does that liberty include the right to end an unwanted pregnancy? Does that liberty include the right to be who you are and use the bathroom that fits who you are? Does “our history” include the past that you and your allies want to eliminate from public education? Oh wait — I know the answers to those questions too. And as for God-given rights: if they exist, I do not believe that they include the right to carry weapons of war in everyday life.

There’s something about Mary.

Related reading
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Red flags

David French: “Pass red flag laws. Now. Give families and police a chance to remove guns from the people who tell us they’re dangerous.” Found via The New York Times.

Our household’s representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), has touted, loudly, repeatedly, her opposition to red-flag laws. Here she is, proclaiming her opposition and boasting about her A ratings from the NRA and Gun Owners of America (a organization that deems the NRA too willing to compromise).

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Some Miller votes

Representative Mary Miller (R, IL-15) has tweeted thoughts and prayers for Ukraine. Yet she voted last week against H.R. 7691, Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022. The bill passed, 368–57.

Miller has also tweeted about the scarcity of infant formula. (Never mind the reasons.) Yet she voted on Wednesday against H.R. 7790, the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022. The bill passed, 219–192.

Miller has also tweeted about the cost of fuel. (Never mind the reasons.) Yet she voted yesterday against H.R. 7688, the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act. The bill passed, 217–207.

Despite what I have read — in reliable sources — about Illinois redistricting, it’s now clear that my household will still be part of IL-15 in the upcoming election, and our representative come November will be Rodney Davis or Mary Miller. The horror.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

[GovTrack.us is far better than house.gov for following bills and votes.]

Another vote from Mary Miller

My (nominal) representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), was one of fifty-seven House Republicans to vote yesterday against additional emergency appropriations for Ukraine. There’s something about Mary.

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Is it Christian nationalism yet?

Representative Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), or a staffer writing in her name, has responded to PolitiFact’s conclusion that Miller’s claims about gender-affirming care for trans and nonbinary children and adolescents are false. I won’t link to what Miller (or a staffer) wrote, but I’ll quote:

I am unashamed of our Judeo-Christian heritage and the values that most Americans hold to. God created us male and female — this [i.e., gender-affirming care] is nothing but rebellion against God.

And:

Why are we ashamed of our Judeo-Christian heritage and our values? We need to be loud and proud about them. They are the values that bring freedom and productivity to a country, to its communities, and that cause our families to thrive.

Samuel L. Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma offers a helpful ten-point checklist: How can we spot #ChristianNationalism in the wild? I score Mary Miller as an eight, possibly nine, of ten.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Miller and Meadowses

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Representative Mary Miller (IL-15) “is benefiting from a $74,054.74 independent expenditure by the Right Women political action committee.” The group’s founder: Debra Meadows. Among its leaders: her husband Mark.

As the Sun-Times reminds us, the Meadowses are suspected of voter fraud, having voted from a North Carolina address where they never resided. As the Sun-Times also reminds us, Miller issued a press release before taking office calling the 2020 presidential election “the greatest heist of the 21st century.” She voted against certifying the result, of course.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts

Eww

Our household’s representative in Congress, Mary Miller (Illinois-15), has been endorsed by Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas. Miller will be facing Rodney Davis in the Republican primary for a redrawn 15th district, so she won’t remain our representative for long. Not that she ever was our representative. She has allied herself with the worst of the worst — Biggs, Boebert, Gaetz, Gohmert, Gosar, Greene, Jordan, and Perry, among others — and has done nothing but stunt and cast appalling votes. She already has the endorsement of the defeated former president. And now Cruz. Eww.

From a 2021 post: “Every time I see Ted Cruz, I am glad that I am someone with more scruples. And a better beard.”

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts

[I won’t link to the source of the Cruz–Miller story. You can guess why. And yes, “junior senator” is deliberate. And yes, his performance yesterday was a disgrace.]

Mary Miller stands alone

The Chicago Tribune reports that Mary Miller (our household’s representative in Congress) is the only member of the Illinois congressional delegation not to denounce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:

Freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican who has embraced the far-right elements of the national GOP and is backed for reelection by former President Donald Trump, issued a statement that neither condemned Putin’s actions nor backed U.S.-led sanctions to his regime.

Instead, she praised Trump for using a “peace through strength” strategy and achieving energy independence during his tenure in the White House as she delivered a litany of what she considered national security failures of Democratic President Joe Biden “and radical leftists in Congress.” She also warned that “gas prices are about to skyrocket even higher.”

“None of this would be happening if President Trump was still in the White House,” Miller’s statement concluded. “I will continue to pray that God watches over the people of Ukraine.”

Mary Miller is a disgrace, locally, nationally, internationally — cosmically, even. Mary is also in a spot of trouble with the Federal Election Commission.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts

Mary Miller again

For a third time, Representative Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) appears in The New Yorker (January 31). She’s mentioned in Jane Mayer’s long, revealing article about Virginia Thomas, the hard-right activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas:

Ginni Thomas has her own links to the January 6th insurrection. Her Web site, which touts her consulting acumen, features a glowing testimonial from Kimberly Fletcher, the president of a group called Moms for America: “Ginni’s ability to make connections and communicate with folks on the ground as well as on Capitol Hill is most impressive.” Fletcher spoke at two protests in Washington on January 5, 2021, promoting the falsehood that the 2020 election was fraudulent. At the first, which she planned, Fletcher praised the previous speaker, Representative Mary Miller, a freshman Republican from Illinois, saying, “Amen!” Other people who heard Miller’s speech called for her resignation: she’d declared, “Hitler was right on one thing — he said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts

Mary Miller in The New Yorker

There she is, Mrs. America, in Amy Davidson Sorkin’s commentary on the Republican response to the work of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack:

When the committee’s recommendation that [Mark] Meadows be referred for charges reached the House floor, though, the Republican members who rose to debate it barely bothered to engage with the legalities. Several used their time to urge the passage of the Finish the Wall Act. “You know who doesn’t show up for court orders?” Representative August Pfluger, of Texas, asked. “Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the illegal immigrants who are served those papers.” Members spoke about fentanyl, Hunter Biden, mask mandates, “empty shelves at Christmas,” and the unjust treatment of parents who object to “some crazy curriculum,” as if the response to any criticism of Trump is to hopscotch from one of the former President’s obsessions to another.

When the Republican members did address the matter at hand, it was in startlingly vitriolic terms. Representative Mary Miller, of Illinois, said that the committee’s work is “evil and un-American.” Yvette Herrell, of New Mexico, said that it is setting the country “on its way to tyranny.” Jordan called the committee an expression of the Democrats’ “lust for power.” And, inevitably, Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, said that its proceedings prove that “communists” are in charge of the House.

You know what’s really “evil and un-American”? Attempting to overturn an election.

This is Miller’s second appearance in The New Yorker this year. Here’s the first.

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Mary Miller, pants on fire

I’ve sometimes thought about creating a Twitter account just to respond to the outrageously dishonest tweets of my representative in Congress, Mary (“Hitler was right on one thing”) Miller. The Chicago Sun-Times has addressed one of Miller’s recent tweets, which claims that a migrant group as large as the population of Minneapolis is making its way to the U.S.–Mexico border.

“Back to square one”

The ONLY reason we are back to square one on COVID, is because the @GOP wanted it that way.

They desperately wanted to foil Biden’s recovery, and they succeeded.

Dead people in our wake is just acceptable collateral damage, as far as the @GOP is concerned.

— Pam Keith, Esq. (@PamKeithFL) August 8, 2021

This explanation seems to me, alas, entirely plausible.

The Trump** cult really is, as I wrote in June 2020, a death cult. In its ranks, millions who believe that endangering their own lives and the lives of others equals “freedom.”

My representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), rejects masks, casts doubt on vaccines, and tells her constituents to “Do what’s best for you & your situation!” Meaning?

[Some background on Pam Keith here.]

Useful reading

A ten-point checklist from Samuel L. Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma: How can we spot #ChristianNationalism in the wild?

My representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), hits on at least eight of ten. I don’t know enough to decide about nos. 4 and 8.

No. 7 seems especially appropriate to consider today. Miller is in the news now as a co-sponsor of legislation to deny federal funding to colleges and universities that provide mifepristone and misoprostol (“the abortion pill”) to students. But also:

Do vaccines work?

This completely undercuts the message to get vaccinated over the last 8 months. https://t.co/hqIm4KSRW7

— Congresswoman Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) July 27, 2021

Here’s Perry on no. 7, “Culture of death”:

This one’s tricky cuz CN will be strongly anti-abortion. But CN will also be pro-guns, pro-military, pro-death penalty, anti-mask, anti-precautions, and anti-healthcare for the poor. The abortion stance is authoritarianism, not concern for the vulnerable.

The Millers in Esquire

Congresswoman Mary Miller has now made it into Esquire as a member of the Sedition Caucus. Also appearing in a supporting role: her husband (and Illinois state representative) Chris. The Millers’ ignominious appearance in Esquire joins previous appearances in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.

I have to wonder whether Mary Miller’s infamous “Hitler was right on one thing” was a moment of sheer idiocy, or a moment of sheer idiocy calculated to make a big splash and bring in bucks.

All the Miller posts
Chris Miller, pandemic denier : January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC : #Sedition3PTruck : Mary Miller’s response to mass murder : Mary Miller and trans rights : Mary Miller on a billboard : Some of Mary Miller’s votes : Illinois-15, COVID-Central : Another Miller vote

Some of Mary Miller’s votes

My representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), votes with the worst of the worst. You wouldn’t know about most of her votes from reading her Facebook or Twitter posts, which cast her as the defender of guns, “life,” and freedom. Here are a few of her votes since arriving in the House:

~ Miller was one of 139 representatives who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election (January 6).

~ She was one of 206 representatives who voted against H.R. 5, the Equality Act, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation (February 25).

~ She was one of thirty-eight representatives who voted against H.R. 1652, VOCA [Victims of Crime Act] Fix to Sustain the Crime Victims Fund Act of 2021 (March 17).

~ She was one of fourteen representatives who voted against H.Res. 134, Condemning the military coup that took place on February 1, 2021, in Burma (March 19).

~ She was one of seventy-one representatives who voted against H.R. 1392, the Protection of Saudi Dissidents Act of 2021 (April 21).

~ And she was one of sixty-two representatives who voted yesterday against S. 397, the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.

Miller is still best known — if she’s known at all — as the new member of Congress who on January 5 told a “Moms for America” rally that

“Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

She may now became better known as one of ten members of Congress who are refusing to wear masks on the House or Senate floor. Here she is, all smiles, with Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others. Not clear, at least to me, whether any of them have been vaccinated.

*

CNN has a list (dated May 19) of members confirmed as vaccinated. Boebert, Cawthorn, Greene, and Miller are missing from the list.

*

May 20: As you might have guessed, Miller voted yesterday against H.R. 3233, National Commission to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act.

All the Mary Miller posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC : Mary Miller’s response to mass murder : Mary Miller and trans rights : Mary Miller on a billboard

[Votes from the incredibly useful GovTrack.us.]

Mary Miller on a billboard

In Effingham, Illinois, the heart of Illinois’s fifteenth congressional district, the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association has rented a billboard to share Representative Mary Miller’s words with the world:

“Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

That’s what she said, in Washington, D.C., on January 5, 2021.

From IDCCA President Kristina Zahorik:

Words matter, particularly from those who hold elected office. And when Mary Miller tried to excuse her comments about Adolf Hitler by accusing others of attempting to “twist her words” the IDCCA knew she needed to be held accountable for her finger-pointing defense. The residents of Mary Miller’s Congressional district need to know that Mary Miller thinks it is acceptable to cite Adolf Hitler to make a political point. The IDCCA hopes the voters remember her inexcusable comments, and hold her accountable as a public official and eventually at the ballot box.

You can see the billboard on the IDCCA’s main page.

All the Mary Miller posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC : Mary Miller’s response to mass murder : Mary Miller and trans rights

Mary Miller and trans rights

In The New York Times and The Washington Post this morning, news of a new battle in the so-called culture wars. From a Times article:

Lawmakers in a growing number of Republican-led states are advancing and passing bills to bar transgender athletes in girls’ sports, a culture clash that seems to have come out of nowhere. . . .

The idea that there is a sudden influx of transgender competitors who are dominating women’s and girls’ sports does not reflect reality — in high school, college or professionally.

And from a Washington Post opinion piece by Megan Rapinoe:

These bills are attempting to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Transgender kids want the opportunity to play sports for the same reasons other kids do: to be a part of a team where they feel like they belong. Proponents of these bills argue that they are protecting women. As a woman who has played sports my whole life, I know that the threats to women’s and girls’ sports are lack of funding, resources and media coverage; sexual harassment; and unequal pay.

The Times article points out that these bills are the result of nationally coordinated efforts on the part of socially conservative organizations and female legislators. It’s no coincidence that the first bill introduced by my representative in Congress, Mary Miller (Illinois-15), would require sex-segregation in school bathrooms and locker rooms and on sports teams, with sex defined as “biological sex, not gender identity.” The bill, which Miller calls the Safety and Opportunity for Girls Act, appears to be H.R. 1417, titled “To clarify protections related to sex and sex-segregated spaces and to activities under title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.” There’s a general snafu with the House Education and Labor Committee website, with nothing to read for H.R. 1417 or any other legislation.

H.R. 1417 is likely going nowhere. But that won’t matter to Mary Miller’s supporters. I can already hear the campaign ads next year: “As a mom to five daughters, Miller led to fight to pass,” &c.

Among those co-sponsoring Miller’s bill: Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

All the Mary Miller posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC : Mary Miller’s response to mass murder

In Illinois-15

Representative Mary Miller’s response to mass murder: to retweet Lauren Boebert and Ben Shapiro. That is all ye know in Illinois-15, and all ye need to know.

All the Mary Miller posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC

#Sedition3PTruck

From The Daily Beast, “Three Percenter Truck at Capitol on Jan. 6 Belongs to Hitler-Quoting Rep’s Husband”:

A pickup truck parked at the United States Capitol and bearing a Three Percenter militia sticker on the day of the Jan. 6 riot belongs to the husband of freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, who approvingly quoted Adolf Hitler a day earlier.

Researchers on Twitter first noticed the Ford pickup truck with the far-right militia’s decal parked on the Capitol grounds in footage posted to social media and taken by CBS News.

Oh, the Millers, Mary and Chris. On Twitter she’s now called #HitlerLady. And he’s #Sedition3PTruck. She’s “my” representative in Congress. He’s “my” rep in the Illinois House.

*

February 26: Chris Miller has now given two explanations of the sticker. One, in the Daily Beast article:

“Army friend gave me decal. Thought it was a cool decal. Took it off because of negative pub,” Miller wrote in an email late Thursday. He says he “never was member” of the militia and “didn’t know anything about 3% till fake news started this fake story and read about them.”

A different explanation, given to a Nexstar outlet:

“My son received the sticker that was on my truck from a family friend who said that it represented patriotism and love of country,” Miller said. “The original group, which has disbanded, was not a violent anti-government group. They were not involved in the Jan. 6th riots. They have issued a statement distancing themselves from the extremists who have copied their name. I have since removed the sticker. My intention was to display what I thought was a patriotic statement. I love our country and consider myself a patriot. My intention was not to hurt or offend anyone but simply to express what I thought was a statement of patriotism. God bless America.”

*

February 27: The Chicago Tribune reports that the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association has asked for a state investigation of Chris Miller. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R, Illinois-16) also supports an investigation.

February 27: ABC News reports that Chris Miller spoke in front of 3P and QAnon banners last May. You can see the performance on Miller’s Facebook page.

February 27: Here’s Mary Miller on February 22, sans mask, among hundreds of people at a largely maskless indoor event for Illinois gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey. You can see her at the 1:10 mark. And listen to what Bailey has to say about masks. Christ, what an airhole.

February 28: USA Today and The Washington Post have picked up the truck story. To its credit, the Post includes Chris Miller’s two explanations of how the decal ended up in his possession.

March 1: From the Chicago Sun-Times :

llinois House Democrats introduced a resolution Monday condemning Republican state Rep. Chris Miller for slapping a decal with the logo of a far-right anti-government militia group on his pick-up truck and accusing him of helping incite the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Here’s the text of the resolution.

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March 6: The Miller have made it into Vanity Fair: “Were Republican Lawmakers In On the U.S. Capitol Siege?”

*

March 19: The Illinois House has voted to censure Chris Miller, 57 to 36, with no Republican votes for censure.

Related posts
Chris Miller, no pandemic : January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : His ’n’ resignations are in order : Mary Miller in The New Yorker : Mary Miller vs. AOC

Mary Miller vs. AOC

My representative in Congress, Mary (“Hitler was right on one thing”) Miller (R, Illinois-15), had the poor judgment to reply in an unimaginatively snarky spirit to a tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, New York-14). Ocasio-Cortez replied in turn. And Miller got, as they say, ratioed.

Always bet on the Bronx.

Related posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble : Mary Miller in The New Yorker

Rep. Mary Miller in The New Yorker

In The New Yorker, Nathan Heller offers “tips for the congresswoman Mary Miller and anyone who might drop an accidental ‘Sieg heil!’ on the lecture circuit”: “You Praised Hitler in a Speech? How to Avoid Those ‘Oops’ Moments.”

Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), a newcomer to the House of Representatives, has not received the attention given to more overtly unhinged members. I think that makes her even more dangerous. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene, she has been appointed to the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Representative Miller is a disgrace to our district. A petition calling for her resignation has 26,000+ signatures.

Related posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble

His ’n’ her resignations are in order

I have learned that “my” representative in the Illinois House, Chris Miller (R-110), husband of Mary Miller, attended the Washington, D.C. rally that was the prelude to last Wednesday’s attempted coup. He was streaming from the scene:

“We’re engaged in a great cultural war to see which worldview will survive, whether we will remain a free people, under free-market capitalism, or whether they will put us into the tyranny of socialism and communism and the dangerous Democrat terrorists that are trying to destroy our country.”

Chris Miller was most recently on my radar in August, when he denied the reality of the pandemic. As a photograph in Business Insider attests, he keeps his mask under his nose. Christ, what an airhole.

There’s a petition.

Related posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask : Mary Miller, still in trouble

Mary Miller, still in trouble

Representative Jan Schakowsky (D, Illinois-9) will introduce a measure to censure fellow representative Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15). On January 5 Miller told a Moms for America rally in Washington that “Hitler was right on one thing — that whoever has the youth has the future.” She’s “my” representative in Congress.

Previous Miller posts
January 5 and 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : A letter to Mary Miller : Mary Miller, with no mask

A letter to Mary Miller

I’m sharing the text of a letter I’ve sent to my district’s representative in Congress, the representative now known on Twitter as #hitlerlady. She’s also made Boing Boing. She’s a disgrace, and she needs to go. If you’d like to sign the petition calling for her resignation, it’s here.

The Honorable Mary Miller
1529 Longworth House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Congresswoman Miller:

For the good of our district and our country, please resign. I see two reasons why you should.

1. Your invocation of Adolf Hitler suggests a glaring absence of moral awareness. Let’s look at your words, which you and your allies claim have been twisted:

“Each generation has the responsibility to teach the next generation. You know, if we win a few elections we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts of our children. It’s the battle. Hitler was right on one thing — that whoever has the youth has the future. Our children are being propagandized.”

First, you say that Hitler was right about something. There is no good reason to say that Hitler was right about something. There is no good reason to say that a murderous dictator was right about anything at all. My wife and I have managed to raise two children without ever turning to Hitler for parenting tips. Second, you invoke Hitler’s observation as the measure of what you believe you and your allies must do: engage in your own effort to make children think and act as you want. Your contorted and unconvincing apology for your words makes things worse still by likening to a Nazi anyone who holds views to the left of yours. And your assertion that you are pro-Israel makes things worse by suggesting that objections to your remarks are just a Jewish thing. Hitler’s cruelty and madness had many more targets than Jews. You don’t have to be Jewish to despise Hitler and think it’s disgraceful for a member of the United States Congress to say that Hitler was right about something. Comments on social media from your allies lead me to think that your apology is hardly genuine anyway.

As a practical matter, your assertion that “Hitler was right” damages our district, which is now known around the nation and around the world for your comments. As friends elsewhere ask, “Is she your representative?” Who would want to locate to a district whose representative in Congress says that “Hitler was right”? Oh, wait — I think I know.

2. Your willingness to go ahead with the effort to subvert the acceptance of the 2020 presidential election — even after the violence in Washington last Wednesday — suggests a disdain for the workings of our democratic republic. You may recall from philosophy what’s called the categorical imperative, the idea that one must act as one would have all others act. You have said that your purpose in objecting to the election results was to assure proper procedures in future elections. But what if all members of the House and Senate had acted as you did on Wednesday? The principle that elections are decided by voters would have been overturned, and democracy with it. To have objected for the sake of theater, to stir up “the base,” to please an unhinged president, while knowing that your minority position would make no difference to the outcome, is to have objected in bad faith, with the understanding that enough other people wouldn’t object. That’s a craven attitude to take in Congress or anywhere else.

I doubt that my words will have any influence on you, but I’m offering them anyway, in the spirit of the categorical imperative. I think that everyone should speak up.

And if you plan on serving out your term, please wear a mask around your fellow members of Congress.

Sincerely, &c.

Related posts, for context
January 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller : The objectors included Mary Miller : Mary Miller in The New York Times

Mary Miller in the news

Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15), “my” representative in Congress, has made The New York Times, among other prominent sources for news, after telling the audience at a “Moms for America” rally in D.C. that “Hitler was right on one thing.” The Associated Press also has the story. Don Lemon called Miller out last night on CNN. You’ll have to take my word for that: I can’t find the footage online.

Miller is also in the news in another way: Representative Seth Moulton (D, Massachusetts-6) reports that when he took a photograph of Republican members of Congress “proudly refusing to wear masks” while sheltering in place in the Capitol Building,

a freshman Trump acolyte, Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois, ran over and started screaming in my face. Apparently, she didn’t want her hypocrisy on public display, even though earlier today [no, Tuesday] she had no qualms rallying protesters by invoking Hitler: “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.‘”

A petition calling for Miller’s resignation is nearing 15,000 signatures. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D, Illinois) is among the many public figures who have called for Miller to resign. Miller needs to put on a mask, get on a plane, and go home. Or, better, find a new home outside Illinois-15. Miller is a disgrace to her office.

Here’s a brief campaign video in which Miller speaks of her dedication to “the important issues.” First up: “our God-given right to own a gun.”

The objectors included Mary Miller

The New York Times this morning lists the members of Congress who objected to certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. Only two members of the Illinois House delegation signed on to the effort. “My” representative, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) was one of them.

With her objection, Rep. Miller continues to distinguish herself as a new member of the House. Yesterday she made the news for saying, to a pro-Trump* gathering, that “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’”

I hope that Mary Miller’s career in Congress is a short one. There’s already a petition calling for her resignation.

January 6 in D.C., with Mary Miller

“This is Trump’s legacy”: Jake Tapper on the madness finding expression in Washington, D.C. today.

“My” new representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) pledged in December to object to what she called “tainted election results” and to fight against what she called “the greatest heist of the 21st century.” Like so many older hands, she too is complicit.

Miller made the news for saying yesterday that “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.’” Here, watch.

Mary Miller, you’re off to a great start.

Chris Miller, ugh

Chris Miller is my — ahem — representative in the Illinois House (R-110). Some representative. This Facebook post (publicized by a young man we’ve known since elementary school days, and who was aghast — thanks, Nick) has not, as they say, aged well. Our little corner of Illinois is showing an alarming rise in coronavirus cases. And the pandemic has always been real.

I don’t know when Miller wrote that post. I don’t know if he’s removed it. But I know one thing (as Miller is fond of saying): the man who wrote that post is a fool.

Miller’s wife Mary is running to represent our gerrymandered corner of Illinois in Congress. Trust that Elaine and I and like-minded people are doing what we can to support her opponent, Erika Weaver.

A related post
Practicing (Another Miller story)