Summary
House Speaker Mike Johnson erupted after failing to block a bipartisan proxy voting bill allowing parental leave for lawmakers.
Despite once voting by proxy himself, Johnson called it “unconstitutional,” revealing GOP resistance to family-friendly policies.
Critics say this aligns with Trump-era efforts to push women out of public life, consistent with Project 2025’s goal of restoring “traditional families.”
Johnson’s move, including canceling House activity, exposed the contradiction in the GOP’s “pro-family” stance and highlighted deeper hostility to workplace flexibility and women’s equality.
Okay, so this was interesting to me, since Bara Dada isn’t really a name. It literally means elder brother in Bengali. (Although most speakers will shorten it to Borda in everyday conversation.) I did a bit of searching, and the quote seems to come from Dwijendranath Tagore, the eldest brother of the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Rabindranath did refer to Dwijendranath as Bara Dada (Boro Dada would be the better pronunciation) in his writings, and Dwijendranath was a philosopher and poet so it makes sense. The original quote seems to be, “Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians – you are not like him.” which is found in the book The Christ of the Indian Road by E. Stanley Jones.
neat, I learn new things today