Republicans Still Stalling On Pandemic Relief For Working Families

Yesterday, the U.S. reached a new, hideous-- but soon to be forgotten-- threshold in the pandemic: 6.5 million cases. There will have been a quarter million deaths-- most preventable-- before election day. The economy-- the real one, not the Wall Street one-- is a shambles. The Trump Regime response? A government shutdown in 3 weeks because they can't agree on a pandemic relief bill? Mnuchin and Pelosi say it won't happen but McConnell sure seems like he's on the way to making sure it does. He can't even get enough support in his own caucus to pass an austerity-oriented bill and refuses to allow a vote of the bill the House passed in May (since it would likely pass the Senate). The senators are back from their vacations but there's no apparent movement. "Republicans," wrote John Bresnahan, "are eager to raise the pressure on Democrats, but their latest gambit may fall short," as McConnell as his cronies scrambled to round up votes for a narrow economic stimulus package they introduced yesterday and hope to put on the floor this week so as to hammer Democrats for opposing and being unwilling to compromise. McConnell's $500 billion proposal includes $300-per-week federal unemployment payments on top of regular state benefits, another round of funding to aid small and medium-sized businesses, liability protections for businesses, schools and charities, and $105 billion for education. Meanwhile, the Democrats have been negotiating with themselves to bring the House bill down from $3.4 trillion to $2 trillion, making their own bargaining position weaker, as usual.

In fact, Bresnahan reported that Senate Republicans are privately playing up reports that Blue Dogs, New Dems and other conservatives from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party in the House "are pressing Pelosi to compromise on a relief package. They're circulating quotes from a dozen Democrats in swing House races calling for additional economic help for financially strapped Americans."

The Heroes Act passed May 15 with just one Republican vote but with 13 anti-working class worthless fake Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP. The congressional class enemies in Congress as "Dems" who voted no are constant shit-eaters Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA), Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC), Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS), Abby Finkenauer (closet Blue Dog-IA), Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME), Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK), Conor Lamb (closet Blue Dog-PA), Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA), Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA), Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM) and Susan Wild (New Dem-PA).

"The White House and Senate Republicans have made clear that they still do not comprehend the scale of this disaster or the urgent needs of our communities and the American people," Pelosi said in a statement on Friday. "House Democrats have come to the negotiating table willing to compromise, and we will continue reaching out until we achieve a fair agreement that meets the needs of all Americans."

Senate Democrats from Schumer on down have slammed McConnell for sitting out talks on the coronavirus relief package. While the Kentucky Republican said the key is for the White House and Democratic leaders to reach a deal first, he's also faced a challenge in balancing the competing factions within his own conference.

A large bloc of Senate Republicans, concerned about the tidal wave of deficit spending this year, believes the U.S. economy will recover without additional government aid. McConnell, however, also has a number of vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in less than two months, and they've been pressing him for action.

Senate Democrats are largely counting on the endangered GOP incumbents to help push the Republican leadership toward an agreement.

"It's still so hard for me to imagine Mitch McConnell packing up the Senate for the election home stretch having not even tried to negotiate in good faith," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). "I've stubbornly stuck to this idea that Republican senators at the very least will be driven to get something done by their fear of backlash from voters."

After McConnell's bill started floating around, Pelosi remarked that "Republicans appear dead-set on another bill which doesn't come close to addressing the problems and is headed nowhere. If anyone doubts McConnell’s true intent is anything but political, just look at the bill. This proposal is laden with poison pills Republicans know Democrats would never support."

Bloomberg News reported that "The stumbling block is aid to state and local governments," something the Democrats insist on and the GOP is dead set against. The Trumpists characterize the aid as a reward for poorly run, mainly Democratic states. Pelosi in Tuesday’s interview that the GOP has "excuses," not real reasons for opposing the effort. She suggested that restrictions could be placed to meet any objections. San Francisco progressive state Senate candidate Jackie Fielder, told me that "the pandemic has proven what we knew all along: wealth doesn't trickle from the top down, it flows-- or is extracted-- from the bottom up. When working people lost their incomes due to COVID, our economy ground to a halt. When billionaires concentrated greater wealth than ever and major corporations like Amazon saw record growth, everyday people didn't feel the boost. Our elected officials have balanced budgets on the backs of workers rather than demanding that the richest individuals and companies pay their fair share. I'm running for State Senate to change that. We need to learn the painful lessons taught by this pandemic and resist the temptation to return to the status quo. That's why I've committed to taxing millionaires, billionaires, and the biggest corporations in order to fund comprehensive social services and ensure fair wages and protections for workers."

McConnell tried and failed for weeks to get most of the Senate’s 53 Republicans on board with the broader $1 trillion plan in the face of opposition from deficit hawks concerned about adding to this year’s $3.3 trillion budget deficit. He’s previously said that as many 20 Senate Republicans were against any additional spending.

...The looming election will create pressure points for Trump as well as for incumbents in the House and Senate. The White House is pushing for stimulus payments for individuals to go out before the Nov. 3 election.

“Nobody wants to give direct payments to American families more than President Donald Trump,” Vice President Mike Pence said on CNBC Friday.

Immediately before their August break, two Senate Republicans trailing their Democratic challengers in polls-- Susan Collins of Maine and Martha McSally of Arizona-- helped introduce a bill that has a higher unemployment benefit enhancement than the one in the scaled-down proposal.

In the House, Democrats from swing districts are poised to increase pressure on Pelosi to get a deal. The [far right, anti-working class] Blue Dog Coalition sent Pelosi a letter on Aug. 21 urging compromise, and vulnerable first-term Iowa [ultra-conservative, anti-worker New Dem] Cindy Axne followed up last week with a letter demanding action on a smaller package.

...Connecticut Democratic Representative Jim Himes said he thinks Trump ultimately will push to get a deal done later in the month if he’s still trailing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in polls.

“The president of the United States understands one thing and perhaps one thing only, and that is what is good for him personally,” he said. “And it is good for him personally to get some kind of a deal done.”

Mondaire Jones is the progressive Democrat running for an open upstate New York seat in a swingy suburban district that includes chunks of Westchester and Rockland counties. This morning, he was blunt and went right to the point about GOP obstructionism: "To date, Republicans in Congress have only provided Americans with a meager $1,200, even as this pandemic stretches into its seventh month. They are inexplicably refusing to fund our state and local governments, forcing cuts to crucial services like public education and Medicaid. The Republican Party has the power to avert mass suffering, and it is simply choosing not to. It is unfit to govern."

California Is Burning-- But Trump Told FEMA Not To Help Because Not Enough Californians Voted For Him In 2016

There are dozens of wildfires raging across northern California right now-- primarily in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Lake and Yolo counties. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. At least 5 people, including 2 first responders, are dead. During his Convention segment Thursday night, Gavin Newsom said "If you are in denial about climate change, come to California." Led by Ted Lieu, the majority of California's congressional delegation has asked Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to open an investigation into allegations-- watch the video from the former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff below-- that the federal government improperly denied or delayed aid to California wildfire victims. The letter follows allegations from a former Department of Homeland Security official that President Trump ordered FEMA to deny assistance to Californians because of the political demographics of the state. Taylor said that on a phone call with FEMA, Trump told them "to cut off the money and no longer give individual assistance to California. He told us to stop giving money to people whose houses had burned down from a wildfire because he was so rageful that people in the state of California didn't support him."





Trump has lost whatever bit of sanity he ever had. Although only 31.6% of Californians voted for him, that's still 4,483,810 people-- more voters than from any other states other than Texas and Florida. And most of the worst devastation from the fires were in Republican areas in the northeast corner of the state, solidly Republican CA-01, where a notorious Trump apologist and enabler, Doug LaMalfa is the congressman.

Ted Lieu's letter to Cuffari asks 4 questions all Californians should want to hear answered:

• Did the President or DHS officials improperly influence the issuance of any fire management assistance grant?
• Did the President or DHS officials improperly delay granting or deny any requests for an emergency or major disaster declaration?
• Did the President or DHS officials attempt to revoke or delay the distribution of any assistance that had already been granted to California fire victims?
• Did the President or DHS officials improperly deny requests from the State of California to adjust state and local cost share requirements associated with debris removal and emergency protective measures assistance?

Lieu asked every member of the California delegation to sign onto his letter. Most did-- but not a single Republican did. They rejected it out of hand. Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Ken Calvert, Tom McClintock, Paul Cook, Mike Garcia and, most shockingly, Doug LaMalfa all showed they would rather stand with Trump politically than stand with their own constituents in a life or death situation. California has 53 House members but just 7 are Republicans. In a justice world, there wouldn't be single California Republican left in Congress.

Liam O'Mara is a history professor in Riverside County running for the last southern California seat the GOP has managed to cling onto. Yesterday, after reading Lieu's letter-- and seeing Ken Calvert wasn't a signatory-- O'Mara noted that "Calvert is a hyper-partisan creature, afraid to buck this president and act in the interests of Californians. His spinelessness is part of the reason he's never chaired a committee and authored so little legislation-- he's afraid to stand out from the crowd. Our 'Representative' will never have the courage to challenge his own party leadership, even when doing so is transparently in the interests of his constituents and his home state. Failing to speak up as Californians die and their houses are destroyed is unconscionable and almost criminally negligent."

There's another corrosive "Devin" in the Central Valley-- it's a popular name among Republicans-- Devon Mathis of Tulare County, widely considered one of the California legislatures very worst members. His opponent is a young progressive first-time candidate, Drew Phelps, who told us that "Once again, California is faced with an unprecedented wildfire season. Meanwhile, to find out recently that the federal administration may have withheld past wildfire aid is extremely alarming. While our state leaders and the federal administration can bicker over policy differences, putting human lives at stake over those differences is never acceptable and should not be tolerated."

Jackie Fielder is running for California Assembly also, but in a November contest that pits her-- a staunch progressive-- against another Democrat, Scott Wiener, a corporate shill and conservative lackey of special interests. Jackie told me yesterday that "Californians affected by the wildfires are Americans, too. Whether the President likes it or not, he is their president. It’s disgusting he would let politics get in the way of providing relief for people who are being asked to leave their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs in the middle of the night. We simply don’t have enough resources to fight these fires and save lives."

Jackie Fielder Stood up to Big Oil & Wall Street-- Now She's Taking On Real Estate's Top Politician In California

Jackie Fielder is a Native American (Two Kettle Lakota and Hidatsa), Mexicana, and queer educator and organizer running for state Senate against the most real estate-backed politician in California, Scott Wiener. Jackie's growing movement includes California Teachers, grassroots organizers, elected leaders across the country and, as of today, Blue America! Please consider contributing to her campaign by clicking on the 2020 Blue America state legislative thermometer below.

After earning both a BA in Public Policy and a MA in Sociology from Stanford, Jackie joined the Indigenous-led No Dakota Access Pipeline movement in her ancestral territories. Back in the San Francisco Bay Area, she became an organizer for public banking to divest San Francisco’s $11 billion city budget from pipeline construction, private prisons, and weapons manufacturing. As co-founder and lead organizer of the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, she took on Wall Street lobbyists to pass statewide legislation and introduce a local ordinance to create the first municipal bank in the country.

Jackie’s opponent, Wiener, is bankrolled by the real estate interests profiting from the housing crisis, fossil fuel giants like Chevron, anti-police reform organizations, and corporations like WalMart. In 2018 he sided with the Republican Party in support of a dangerous police use-of-force policy. Later that year, he opposed a small tax on the largest corporations to fund vital housing and services for the homeless. How could that not be a quid pro quo?

California is the fifth largest economy in the world yet ranks in the bottom nationally for per pupil spending. Jackie supports protecting and expanding the public education budget, while her opponent repeatedly supported diverting funding away from public education.

Global pandemic has both sharpened focus on the inequalities of our society and demanded bold action and transformative solutions. Jackie knows we can’t afford to go back to the status quo, and that taking on the next global crisis requires learning our lessons now.

I hope you'll help Blue America elect a state Senator with the courage to take on the crises facing the state, the country, and the planet. And a progressive who will be on the Democratic bench in the country's biggest state.

I'll Be The First Indigenous Woman Elected To The California State Senate
-by Jackie Fielder

Let me introduce myself. I was born in California and raised by a single mother in an underserved neighborhood dotted with fossil fuel refineries. When I was still a student at Stanford, I watched videos of my relatives staring down the barrels of guns, being bitten by dogs, and pummeled with water cannons in subzero temperatures as they stood up to the Dakota Access Pipeline.

I founded the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition in 2017 after identifying the common denominator between oil pipelines, private prisons, and weapons manufacturing: Wall Street banks. We needed an alternative financial institution that would reinvest our tax dollars for the public good. Within two years, we passed AB 857 to allow municipalities to establish public banks, and won majority support for legislation to create one in San Francisco.

After campaigning successfully for police accountability as well as organizing Mijente’s No Tech For ICE campaign, I was tapped by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza to take over teaching her Race, Women, and Class course at San Francisco State University. Even as a university lecturer, I found myself personally crushed by the housing affordability crisis and-- like so many other educators-- struggled to find an affordable room to rent.

I’m running for State Senate because we have a mandate to be bolder. Transformative policies like statewide single-payer healthcare, a Green New Deal for California, redressing epidemic income inequality, and investing in affordable housing and education for all have never been more urgent.

We don’t have any time left for excuses or despair, and the global health and economic crisis has proven that major challenges demand bold action. Every dollar you contribute helps us tell a voter, “You don’t have to live in fear for your future or the future of your loved ones-- you deserve a legislator who will fight for you.”