John Dingell, American Hero

John Dingell was name-dropped this week by Donald Trump, who said the much-loved dead Congressman was now in hell because his wife, now a US Congressman, had voted to impeach Trump, only the third US President in history to be indicted for crimes in the history of the United States. Trump was impeached by more votes than any of the previous presidents too — a vote count he actually won.

I knew John Dingell a little bit, as he had gaveled Medicare into law in 1965, and we had met 30 years later when I helped orchestrate a 30th Anniversary celebration of that law.

Later, I worked for the National Audubon Society, which earlier this year posted this profile of John Dingell as a great American environmental and conservation hero.

If you’ve ever been lucky enough to see a Bald Eagle in the wild, you owe a debt of gratitude to John Dingell. Same goes for a Peregrine Falcon, Brown Pelican, Whooping Crane, California Condor, grizzly bear, American alligator, or humpback whale.

We have Dingell to thank for the continued existence of these and many other creatures because the former Michigan congressman, who died Thursday at 92, was a lead author of the Endangered Species Act. The landmark 1973 law protects about 100 bird species and has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of the species it covers.”

... He led the charge in the House to pass the National Environmental Protection Act, sometimes called the Magna Carta of American environmental law, which requires federal agencies to assess how proposed activities will impact the environment. Dingell played a major role in passing the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Wilderness Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and other significant laws to protect public health and natural areas.

... Dingell was an Army veteran, a former National Park Ranger, an angler and hunter, and among the deftest Twitter users of any generation. (“I signed up to fight Nazis 73 years ago and I'll do it again if I have to,” he tweeted after the 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Hatred, bigotry, & fascism should have no place in this country.”)

Read the whole thing, and remember when we had truly great leaders, not just puppets and pretenders.