Moscow Mitch Is Hardly A Picture Of Health

 

-by Noah

An orange President. A purple Majority Leader. Flies laying their eggs on the VP? Is this truly the End Times?

So, yeah, what is it with McConnell's bruised skin? Enquirer minds wanna know! My first supposition was that he's into a bit of rough trade. His closeted sexuality has bred whispers for decades so... I've heard "some say" that he has a skin condition that's common with the elderly but I've never seen anything like that in nursing homes and the only time I ever see people with bandaids on their knuckles, I know they've been in a fight. Did the neighbor of fellow Kentucky $enator Rand Paul pay him a visit?

"Some people" are offering that it's the result of blood thinners but I've never seen that anywhere either, and I have a lot of friends taking blood thinners. Now, "some people are saying" (Republicans) that he fell, sort of like the ol' "I ran into a door" thing. I doubt McConnell runs that fast. Perhaps his shipping magnate drug courier father-in-law had a message delivered over some drug deal or a deal with Chy-y-y-na. I'd like to think that Schummer beat him up, but Schummer is too much of a wimp. Trump or one of his brain-rotted kids might have done it if he gave Trump some sort of bad news reality check about something; all sorts of possibilities on that one. Putin? A COVID-19 side effect? Just his massive evil taking over his physical appearance like some sort of cheezy horror film?

One thing is for sure, the longer McConnell avoids giving a substantial answer, the more stories and theories will be concocted. Imagination loves to fill a void! These days, you don't even need that void! Thinking of QAnon on that one. Personally, I'd like to see it cost him re-election or, if he is re-elected, just keel over dead within hours. Although, a slow, lingering painful death for him would be more just. Does thinking that make me a bad person in the eyes of others? Like I care. Oh, and I deeply resent whatever healthcare he's getting being paid for by our taxes. Fuck him. I hope blood starts shooting from his eyes on national TV. Maybe as he gives a national TV interview on FOX "News" about the confirmation of Amy Coathanger Barrett. That might disturb all those Republican Bible thumpers, bigly! C'mon Mitch! Tell us! Do we have to wait for your alien autopsy?

Establishment "Democrat" Jamie Dimon Joins Mitch McConnell On The Losing Side Of History

 

The "Losing Side of History" phraseology comes from yesterday's column about #MoscowMitch in Politico Magazine by John Harris. Harris wrote that McConnell's (and the GOP's) "sprint to install a justice for a lifetime appointment this year, either days before a presidential election or in the lame-duck session afterward, looks a lot like the dying spasms of a political movement that began five decades ago."

Now, at 78, McConnell is leading a party that depends on exploiting every avenue to preserve power despite not commanding national majorities. Starting in 1992, in seven presidential elections, Republicans have won the popular vote just once.

The national electorate is younger, more diverse, and less traditional in cultural attitudes, and more enthusiastic about a robust role for government. The Republican Party for most of this century draws overwhelmingly from people who are older, white, and socially conservative. In recent years, college-educated voters are taking flight from the GOP.

Republicans have won power in significant measure through institutions that buffer the influence of national majorities: The Electoral College, the Senate, and, above all, the Supreme Court.

A conservative movement that in youth worked to rein in the Supreme Court’s unelected power in the name of democracy now hopes in old age to harness the Supreme Court’s unelected power to protect it from the hazards of too much democracy.

These institutions can slow long-term demographic and ideological trends but they are unlikely to halt them. This means that, in due course-- whether this year or sometime in the future-- we will learn how closely Democrats have been studying the McConnell methods and whether they will choose to emulate them.

So what's all that got to do with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon? Well... do you recall when Team Biden was touting Dimon as a strong contender for Biden’s dream team-- Secretary of the Treasury was where they saw this Clintonite turd. There was such an uproar that Dimon put out a statement assuring voters he wasn't interested. Still, that was already about as alarming a statement about those advising Biden, and their kowtow to Wall Street, as one can imagine. Now Pam and Russ Martens have revealed that Dimon and JPMorgan's PAC are financially supporting McConnell's reelection bid. Nice, huh?

Dimon, a billionaire, and his PAC have given thousands of dollars to McConnell and McConnell operations. "McConnell doesn’t like taxes on the rich," wrote the Martens. "Perhaps that’s a good enough reason for Dimon to donate to his political campaign and not give a hoot about how that might earn him the hostility of his workforce or doom the country." Actually Dimon says he doesn't really mind if the rich get taxed on their incomes... just not on their wealth.

Biden should be careful to be aware when making cabinet picks of people, like Dimon, who say things like this: "I've gotten disturbed at some of the Democrats' anti-business behavior, the attacks on work ethic and successful people. I think it's very counterproductive... It doesn't mean I don't have their values. I want jobs. I want a more equitable society. I don't mind paying higher taxes... I do think we're our brother's keeper but I think that attacking that which creates all things, is not the right way to go about it." Or perhaps Biden has the same mindset.

In fact, yesterday, David Sirota suggested that Biden is jeopardizing the election by alienating progressives by shitting on them. He's beating Trumop in poll after poll but his enthusiasm gap is wide, even if Republican elites-- though not masses of GOP voters-- seem to like him. Sirota wrote that "he should stop triangulating against the base of his party and publicly dunking on the millions of Democratic voters who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders in the party’s last two presidential primaries.

During an interview with a local Fox affiliate in Wisconsin today, Biden took a shot at Sanders in response to a reporter’s loaded question about “voters that are worried about socialism and you raising taxes.”

There are plenty of ways to answer that question. You can reject the arguments over labels. You can pivot to talking about expanding health care and fighting the pandemic-- two issues that are top concerns to Wisconsin voters, according to the latest Ipsos poll.

Instead, Biden used the opportunity to dunk on Bernie Sanders-- the third most popular Democrat in America, ahead of Biden, according to YouGov’s national poll.

“I beat the socialist. That’s how I got elected. That’s how I got the nomination,” Biden said. “Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career, my whole career. I’m not a socialist.”

That’s certainly true-- Biden has tried to cut Social Security, supported bank deregulation, and is opposed to Medicare for All. The only part of Biden’s record that could be called socialist was his vote to bail out Wall Street executives-- but that was a form of corporate socialism that enriched the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country after they ruined millions of Americans’ lives.

So, yeah, while Biden is no socialist, none of his record proving that is anything to brag about. More important, Biden’s instinct to crap on progressives, rather than energizing them, is totally counterproductive to the effort to defeat Donald Trump. It not only helps Trump by validating his Red Scare framing of the election, but it also tells progressives that Biden may not be the ally he is promising to be.

...A few weeks ago, Biden’s campaign made headlines echoing Republican talking points about the deficit and insinuating that a Biden administration wouldn’t follow through on its budget promises. Biden also told his Wall Street donors that despite his public promises, “I’m not proposing any” legislation to change corporate behavior. That followed his previous promise to his big donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” for them under a Biden administration.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Mitch? Bitch? It's all the same, especially in the case of Trump and Putin's bitch. He's yet another psycho in a long line of Washington psychos and he's acting like that cat that holds down a mouse or a bug with one paw and pulls off his victim's legs one at a time with his teeth. The cat can't help it. It's a cat. Bitch McConnell can help it. He has a choice but he's made a conscious decision to mistreat the people he dismissively laughs at, the "ordinary Americans," the ones that "don't count" as he proudly calls himself "The Grim Reaper." To Mitch, tens and tens and tens of millions of Americans are nothing but a bug on the floor. He's every bit as sick as Trump but he's better organized. That's why Trump and Putin rely on him to implement as much human suffering as he can. That's why, as of this writing (Thursday night) there is still no deal to help Americans stave off eviction, vote safely if at all, pay for medical bill during a pandemic, educate the kids, or feed the family. Caring and empathy are things he's trained himself not to have, if he ever had them in the first place. Caring and empathy get in the way of his greed and sadistic lust for power over people, the power to kick Americans into the streets, the power to starve them. He's had over 2 months to help Americans but it's just not in his nature. He'd rather help his masters. He's a perfect Republican. He is what he is on behalf of the party that says "It is what it is."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah 

Moscow Mitch McConnell. Mr. "No more blue state bailouts" himself. Let us never forget this proud soldier-architect of the current madness in which we are forced to live, or in way too many cases, die. He is a key lieutenant in the war against America. He is a repulsive slimy tapeworm, robbing America of its strength from the inside.

Moscow Mitch knew how to build on what came before in order to exponentially increase the human misery and death that his masters, Putin and Trump, required of him. He did it eagerly and he obviously has no intention of stopping: A maximum number of deaths from COVID-19, mystery Blackwater-styled troops (could be real Blackwater troops for all we know*) rounding up citizens of all walks of life on the streets and, soon no doubt, in their homes and at their jobs, a rampant deliberate increase of poverty cases and all that poverty begets, a willfully ignored (for cash in pocket) climate problem that is spiraling out of control while he laughs about being the Grim Reaper, nutball armed militia friends and supporters taking over statehouses, rammed through confirmation of gangsters and fellow grifters for cabinet positions, placement of extreme fascist judges on our courts whose job is to enable all of it, and, most important of all to him, keep the mental case tyrant who cherishes a vision of all of this, and more, behind the desk in the oval office. Moscow Mitch McTraitor is the man who takes the plans and uses the $enate majority that he leads to make sure that they become our dark reality.

Never ever forget. The political world is the perfect environment for people who aspire to be evil. There are those who achieve it or come by it naturally; people like Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, and Susan Collins. And there are those who can marshall their fellow evil ones to achieve sociopathic or even psychopathic effect. Majority Leader McConnell is one of the latter. The self-proclaimed Grim Reaper is so devoid of humanity that, like his master in the White House, he sadistically dragged his feet on having his $enate minions vote on the Heroes Act stimulus package passed by the House 2 months ago. He gleefully shut down all talk of putting it up for a vote or even negotiating a variation of the package until the political winds almost blew him over and brought him to the table. Even now, he's being cranky about it and he's balking and obviously wants even more no strings attached money going into the hands of Master Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, something he gladly forced both parties to go along with the last time. He is once again looking forward to holding middle and working class Americans hostage in favor of the mega donor class, or should I say MAGA donor class? In any event, he is holding new paltry bare minimum $600 or $1200 payments to what Washington disdainfully calls "ordinary Americans" hostage for even more tax breaks and 7+ figure "stimulus" for billionaires and bankster thugs like Citibank and Bank Of America.

One White house proposal, a trap reportedly designed by Jared Kushner, would play on people's current desperation and give direct payment stimulus money up to $5000 to individuals with the catch that their future personal Social Security benefits would be delayed and trimmed. When you hear republicans utter the words 'direct payment' you should know that this is the game they're playing. Another, which Moscow Mitch's master is especially gung-ho on, is a payroll taxcut that is designed to end Social Security and Medicare altogether by starving it of funds. What else would we expect from Donnie The Bankruptcy King? Mr. McTraitor may have a tough time pushing that one even with a few of the repugs. Also, judging from the last stimulus plan, people like McConnell and those in both parties who go along with him, prefer financially servicing the large corporate box stores and crap food-serving chains to supporting your local small business family-owned restaurant, deli, bakery or hardware store. The insane Moscow Mitch does all of this in anticipation of increased pain for so many Americans. It's right out in the open. You can't say he doesn't see the suffering. He looks for it. He engineers it. He's addicted to causing pain and he enjoys giving it. The proof is in his actions even when it isn't in his words. It's who he is.

* Blackwater, a for hire paramilitary company, is now called Academi since being purchased by investors in 2011. It was originally founded by Erik Prince, aka the brother of Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, aka the Trump back channel to Russia guy. Could it be time to once again follow the money?

Conditions May Change Before November-- But Likely, Every Change Will Be Worse For Trump, Not Better

Every pollster or prognosticator who concludes that Trump has no path to victory says something to the effect of "but it's a long time until November 3 and things can change." Well, things will change. You don't have to be Nostradamus to figure out that if Trump keeps doing what he's been doing or his whole life, Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Mississippi will eventually be battleground states. Yes, things change but there is no reason to imagine that they will change in favor of Trump and the GOP. Every indication is that they will change in favor of the Democrats.

Did Trump lose some libertarians who, cluelessly, still support him by sending some kind of brutal secret police force into Portland to scoop up peaceful protesters?

How about Republicans who might possibly be confused by the Regime attempting to block billions of dollars for contact tracing, additional testing and other coronavirus mitigation efforts-- and by blocking funding for the CDC? Will they vote for him anyway? Or Republicans reading yesterday's Wall Street Journal story about how masks matter? "Face masks are emerging as one of the most powerful weapons to fight the novel coronavirus, with growing evidence that facial coverings help prevent transmission-- even if an infected wearer is in close contact with others. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he believes the pandemic could be brought under control over the next four to eight weeks if 'we could get everybody to wear a mask right now.'" And then-- as Trump decided to cut billions from the CDC budget-- he announces on Fox that there will be no national mask mandate, in effect, not recovery from the pandemic until he's out of office.

The House passed legislation 2 months ago to aid Americans hard-pressed by the economic consequences of the pandemic. McConnell said they Senate will get to it when they get to it-- it hasn't-- and that what he comes up with will look nothing like what the House passed anyway. Trump, McConnell and their cronies in Congress have their own priority: shielding businesses that screw up from coronavirus-related lawsuits in state courts. McConnell and Trump have both said they will hold aid to working families hostage unless they get the shield fro their big campaign donors-- and that it has to be retroactive to December, 2019.

Last week, campaigning in Kentucky, McConnell lisped menacingly that any bill "must have, must... no bill will pass the Senate without liability protection for everyone related to the coronavirus... Nobody should have to face an epidemic of lawsuits on the heels of the pandemic that we already have related to the coronavirus."

It would prevent workers, for example, from suing over unsafe working conditions, something contributors to Republican campaigns are notorious for doing. Chuck Schumer called the Republicans' top priority a "liability shield for CEOs."




One more boneheaded reason for supported to abandon Trump between now and November? Writing for MSNBC.com, Steve Benen reported that The benefits for laid off workers created by last March's CARES Act, including enhanced unemployment insurance, "were temporary-- and they're due to expire this month. By refusing to act on the package the Democrats passed 2 months ago, the Republicans purposely guaranteed pain and suffering since it is too late to pass something that will keep people from going without a check. That, of course, was the point-- a vicious, poisonous bargaining chip for McConnell and chip. Trump wants a payroll tax and says it must be part of any package or-- he implies, he'll veto it.

it's a difficult position to take seriously, and it's worth appreciating why. Under the status quo, 6.2% of American workers' paychecks are deducted to help fund the Social Security system. When there's a payroll tax cut-- as there was during Barack Obama's first term as president-- that number is temporarily reduced as a way to put some extra money in every paycheck. The government makes up the difference, paying into the Social Security fund so benefits remain unaffected.

Trump has argued that the cut gets money into people's hands "quickly," and there's some truth to that: if the payroll tax were temporarily scrapped, every American worker's paycheck would have a little more money in it right away.

But there are also some downsides, too. As The Atlantic's Annie Lowrey has explained, a temporary payroll tax break tends to be small, insufficiently targeted, and largely meaningless to those who've lost their jobs and are no longer receiving paychecks. For Americans who rely on tips, or who've seen their hours cut, this policy also would offer very little.

What's more, as the Obama administration discovered nearly a decade ago, many Americans don't necessarily notice the small increases in their paychecks, so they don't feel like they have a little extra money in their pockets to spend, which diminishes the larger impact.

So why is Trump so adamant about this? No one really seems to know. Maybe he's confused; maybe he's getting some bad advice; or maybe he remains preoccupied with his political standing and sees this as a possible device for his re-election campaign.

Remember, Bloomberg News reported a few months ago that the president specifically told Republican senators that "he wants a payroll tax holiday through the November election so that taxes don't go back up before voters decide whether to return him to office."

In other words, Trump is threatening to derail an economic aid package at a key moment unless Congress gives him an unnecessary tax break that the president wants to use as a campaign talking point.

No good can come of this.

On Friday, Bernie and Andy Slavitt co-authored an OpEd for CNN about masks that approaches the pandemic problem very differently from the way the Trump regime does-- clearly and simply and constructively. "In the midst of this unprecedented global pandemic," they wrote, "it is clearer than ever that not only is health care a human right, but so too are the resources to protect your health and the health of your family and neighbors. That's why we are urgently calling for a simple, common-sense, practical and inexpensive way to protect Americans during the coronavirus pandemic: Masks for All. Our goal must be to make high-quality masks available on an equitable basis to every single person in this country at no cost. Next week, one of us will introduce legislation to do just that. The science is clear: Wearing a mask not only saves lives, but the widespread use of masks will get Americans back to work sooner and reunite families who have stayed apart. Hopefully, this legislation will even help counter some of the confusion and misinformation over mask-wearing... Unfortunately, it is absolutely clear that we cannot wait for this administration to take action. So, as a first step, the Masks for All legislation will instruct the Trump administration to acquire and deliver three high-quality, reusable masks to every person in the country with the best available designs that can be manufactured. They would be delivered via US mail, made available free locally at testing sites, post offices and pharmacies, as well as distributed in collaboration with state and local governments to homeless shelters, jails, detention centers and other congregate-care settings... We are all in this together. During World War II, factories across the country were given the opportunity to play a role in winning the war. Today, US manufacturers and workers could play an equivalent, vital role in winning the war against the pandemic, and ensuring a healthy society for all."

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

No Justice, No Sleep, Mitch!
- Protesters outside of Moscow Mitch McTraitor's Kentucky home.

With everything else that's been going on, we must never forget Trump's $enate expediter Moscow Mitch. As crooked old Dick Nixon once uttered, "That would be wrong." We should never forget Trump's henchmen. After all, we didn't forget Hitler's at Nuremberg. So, I was very pleased to hear about the protesters that started gathering at night in front of Moscow Mitch's ol' Kentucky home recently. They reportedly woke him up. Aw, poor little turtle! I guess he wasn't out burning a cross, at least not that night.

The chant chosen by the protesters (above) is perfect, but of course, the chanting isn't anywhere near enough. Getting McConnell out of the $enate would be a great and patriotic start but it won't be enough, either, not that I expect the state of Kentucky's residents to actually do the morally correct thing and vote him out. Even if they did, he'd just slide over to K-Street on a puddle his own copious slime and begin a new variation in his corrupt and sleaze-dedicated life, and he'd be replaced by some other suspect goon in a suit. Who knows, maybe Putin would offer McConnell a job in the Russian embassy as an official spy after all of his service to Mother Russia as an unofficial agent of the Kremlin.

In a better world, Moscow Mitch McTraitor would face complete family asset seizure and a maximum penitentiary lifestyle until the day he dies. I'd say just leave him homeless on the street so he can know how it feels to be forced to live like so many people that he and his kind have deliberately thrown into the streets, but, we all know that any number of republicans would give him a welfare handout and take him into their stately homes. I can see them inviting him to live in some restored plantation house in Mississippi. They'd even give him a whip and let him whip the housekeeper, but he might ask to be whipped himself.

Lest you think I've gone soft on crime, I haven't but we do have a system of laws, severely selective and broken as it is with no one in authority inclined to fix it properly. Then again, the idea that McConnell is a statue fills my mind with a lot of imagery. I might call them dreams. In my dreams, I can see Mitch as a statue. Yes, I see pigeons, lots of pigeons in his future! Or maybe Mr. Statue Mitch gets tied up with ropes, hauled down, dragged, and dumped into the water like that statue of his fellow racist in the U.K. Not bad, especially if the ropes are not removed. Just make sure the water is cold, really cold, and extra polluted thanks to his efforts. And let's have no talk, zero, of anyone throwing him a life preserver. When has he ever done that for anyone who isn't a member of the top half of the one percent? No Justice. No Sleep. No Air, Mitch! Drown baby drown!

Will Kentucky Democrats Shut Down Boss Hogg-- I Mean Boss Schumer?

Schumer picked a slate of miserable status quo Democratic Senate candidates for 2020. Not one of them stands for any change except the superficial change of replacing a corporate Republican with a corporate Democrat. If there's an anti-red wave, some of them will win. They define why there is no blue wave. There's nothing to vote for-- just a series of less-of-two evils races:

• Arizona- Mark Kelly (a recent Democrat)
• Alaska- Al Gross (not even a Democrat)
• Arkansas- Schumer neglected to recruit a candidate against Tom Cotton
• Colorado- Frackenlooper
• Georgia- Jon Ossoff*
• Iowa- Theresa Greenfield*
• Kansas- Barbara Bollier (a recent "Democrat")
• Maine- Sara Gideon
• Montana- Steve Daines (even a clock is right twice a day; Schumer got it right once)
• New Mexico- Ben Ray Luján*
• North Carolina- Cal Cunningham*
• South Carolina- Jaime Harrison (a lobbyist)
• Texas- MJ Heger*

The asterisk (*) denotes candidates whose photos could be in the dictionary next to the phrase "born loser." and then, at least symbolically, there's the most important Senate race of the cycle: Kentucky, where majority leader and professional impediment Mitch McConnell-- the most hated man in poll after poll-- in American politics. Schumer picked a "born loser" candidate and the media, obediently accepted her as THE candidate and treated it as a fait accompli... until last week, when, despite Schumer's attempt to pretend his candidate, Amy McGrath, was the candidate Kentucky Democrats started asking themselves who some lug from Brooklyn, fully owned and operated by Wall Street, gets to pick their nominee. Especially since there's a better candidate in the race, Charles Booker.

As of June 3rd, Booker had raised $788,270, almost entirely from grassroots donors. The Schumer candidate-- with lots of help from Schumer-- brought in $40,825,989. A consultant for Schumer's candidate persuaded her to come off as a pro-Trump Democrat, something that hasn't exactly impressed Kentucky Democrats. Booker's vibrant, progressive grassroots coalition helps explain his growing appeal-- and why the state's two most important newspapers, the Louisville Courier Journal and the Lexington Herald Leader endorsed him so effusively last week.

Schumer must have been going crazy on Wednesday when someone told him the Courier Journal endorsement was going to make much harder for him to quietly slip his nothing candidate into the nomination, the way he had already done in North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa and Texas. "This," wrote the editorial board, "is a historic time in our state and nation. A time when young and old, black, white and brown are calling for change-- not just incremental change, but sweeping reform that will usher in true equality and justice for all. To get there, we need political leaders with insight and vision, who understand the challenges of our times and are willing to put forth bold ideas and fight for everyday people. Voters in Kentucky and around the country deserve the chance to consider candidates who have strident beliefs and the courage to go beyond scripted, milquetoast politics." Schumer is all about pickinging "scripted, milquetoast" hacks. "Political leaders with insight and vision" scares the hell out of him and infuriates him. They wrote that Booker "is the kind of political leader and change agent that our commonwealth needs" but that the Schumer candidate-- doing exactly what Schumer directed her to do-- "has not shown the progressive ideas and bold leadership necessary to move our state forward. She has been overly moderate, measured and cautious throughout this campaign, focusing more on her military service (which we applaud and sincerely respect) or her motherhood than offering a sweeping vision for the commonwealth-- especially in these turbulent times. Unfortunately, her message to voters has been unimaginative and uninspiring."

The Herald-Leader described her as Schumer's "anointed front-runner with a war chest of donations that might even rival McConnell’s usual corporate haul," but Kentucky Democrats have been unimpressed by a campaign that has entirely ignored them and been focussed on appealing to Republicans and independents, once even saying she would have voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court!

By February, Blue America was convinced that Booker is the candidate to beat McConnell and we endorsed him in early March. Since then, AOC and Bernie weighed in for him, as did a whole slew of progressive organizations. The headline at Politico yesterday isn't what Schumer wanted to see: Insurgent threatens to derail McGrath-McConnell showdown in Kentucky. "State Rep. Charles Booker has captured late momentum in the June 23 primary, fueled by prominent endorsements and Amy McGrath's stumbles," wrote Jim Arkin and Burgess Everett. Booker, they wrote "now has all the momentum in the closing days of the election," which takes place June 23. You can contribute to his campaign by clicking on the Blue America Senate 2020 thermometer on the right.

McGrath is the favorite of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm and many sitting senators, and it’s hard to imagine she could lose a primary in which she’s outspent her opponents combined by a nearly 30-1 margin through early June. But there are signs it's turning into a real race: Booker is panning McGrath as a bland national Democrat who is predictably tacking to the center, while McGrath is biting back at Booker, accusing him of talking a big game on health care and voting rights but not backing it up.

"I don't really know what position Amy McGrath takes because she goes back and forth on everything depending on what consultants seem to say,” Booker said in an interview. “I know that Kentuckians can smell BS from miles away.”

...McGrath had a bumpy rollout last year, saying in one of her first interviews that she would have supported Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, only to reverse herself later that day. More recently, Republican governors and Cindy McCain, the late Sen. John McCain’s widow, condemned ads of hers using their images to attack McConnell.

And McGrath has few substantial in-state endorsements, while Booker has been endorsed by prominent Kentucky media and close to two-dozen elected officials.

...McGrath is positioning herself somewhere in the realm of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), a moderate Democrat [a values-free conservative opportunist] elected in 2018 who works with Republicans more than her own party leaders. McConnell himself declined to pinpoint whom he would rather face.

Sanders' and Ocasio-Cortez’s backing helped boost fundraising for Booker, and he raised nearly $1 million in nine days, three times his entire first-quarter haul. Newspaper endorsements and backing from sports radio host Matt Jones gives Booker legitimate in-state boosters outside his base in Louisville.

After coronavirus stalled any effort at toppling McGrath, the protests against police brutality are sparking newfound momentum for Booker.

“How do you run your campaign when you can't go anywhere? And then these protests come around, and I think it helped Charles find his footing and find his voice,” said Jones, who considered running for the seat and criticizes the DSCC. He acknowledged that McGrath remains the favorite but predicted a close finish.

“I don't know that I’ve ever seen a race where somebody has this much money and seems to be struggling,” he added.

Most Democrats declined to criticize McGrath on the record. Even Sanders gave a guarded response when asked why he felt the need to weigh in.

“We’re going to support progressive candidates who are fighting for the issues that we believe in,” Sanders said this week.

Democratic leaders were perplexed by Sanders’ intervention. As Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) put it: “Bernie may have made some promise to someone along the way.”

“She is in the mainstream of Democratic thinking, and I think is very electable in the commonwealth of Kentucky,” said Durbin, who is from neighboring Illinois.

Despite the intrigue in the primary, Kentucky is not central to Democrats’ campaign for the majority. Party officials say that it’s one of the longest shots to flip this election, and the money soaked up by McGrath would arguably go much further in North Carolina, Montana and Iowa.

“Those polls that show it tied are real. But the composition of the undecideds should give us great pause. I am more bullish on South Carolina, Texas-- I mean, almost every other race,” said one Democratic senator familiar with party strategy.

McGrath has been squeezed on both sides down the stretch: Booker is running an ad claiming she’s not a “real Democrat” and suggesting she’s too pro-Trump, while McConnell’s campaign released a new ad attacking her support for Trump’s impeachment and calling her “extreme.”

“You can’t run against McConnell from a defensive crouch with a playbook that was obviously cooked up by consultants. You have to perform every day, drive a message and keep him on his back foot,” said Adam Jentleson, who was a top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "Only Charles will be able to do that."

Is It Really Possible That History Will Judge Mitch McConnell More Harshly Than Trump?

Yesterday, The Nation published a piece by Jeet Heer, Mitch McConnell Is Even Worse Than Trump, which notes that both are now basically AWOL is the pandemic crisis. While Trump spends his days "stirring up culture-war controversies with the media and Democrats as a way to move the discussion beyond the pandemic and the economic crisis. A distraction strategy makes sense because Trump has effectively given up on crafting any serious policy response to the pandemic. As Greg Sargent of the Washington Post notes, 'Trump’s war on reality has veered into a new place. Trump is responding to our most dire public health and economic crises in modern times with a concerted, far-reaching effort to concoct the mirage that we’re racing past both. The signs of this,' Sargent observes, 'are everywhere: in a new federal testing blueprint that largely casts responsibility on the states. In Trump’s new rage-tweets at the North Carolina governor over whether a full convention will be held under coronavirus conditions. And in demands for liability protections for companies so sickened workers can’t sue.'Trump’s response to the pandemic, now that the first wave has peaked and is perhaps beginning a slow decline, is to ride it out. He is going to do as much as he can to pretend that it is all but over and to distance himself from any responsibility for the continuing deaths."

Trump has in effect gone AWOL. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has been equally derelict, taking repeated breaks from Washington and focusing his energies more on filling court vacancies than crafting a policy response to the pandemic. In mid-March, the hashtag #WheresMitch gained currency because he recessed the Senate to return to his home state of Kentucky to celebrate the elevation of a protégé, Justin Walker, to the federal bench.

Last Friday, the Senate started another recess, this one lasting three weeks. That leaves the $3 trillion relief package that the House has passed in a limbo, awaiting McConnell’s return for negotiations to even start deliberating about any Senate revisions. McConnell’s decision to delay the relief package comes at a time when unemployment rates are about to approach 20 percent, a catastrophic level not seen since the Great Depression. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell warns that the recession could last until the end of 2021.

Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are often treated like an odd couple, a pair of opposites who have been forced together. Trump is the loud outsider who has no real understanding of how government works. McConnell is the low-key consummate insider, skilled at gaming the system through backroom deals.

Jane Mayer’s in-depth profile of the Kentucky senator in the New Yorker quotes many Washington observers who draw a contrast between the two men. One former Trump administration official told Mayer, “It would be hard to find two people less alike in temperament in the political arena. With Trump, there’s rarely an unspoken thought. McConnell is the opposite-- he’s constantly thinking but says as little as possible.” The official added, “Trump is about winning the day, or even the hour. McConnell plays the long game. He’s sensitive to the political realities. His North Star is continuing as Majority Leader-- it’s really the only thing for him. He’s patient, sly, and will obfuscate to make less apparent the ways he’s moving toward a goal.”

But as Mayer makes clear, McConnell’s single-minded focus on keeping his position as majority leader aligns him in a deep way with Trump, despite their superficial dissimilarities. Both Trump and McConnell are nihilists, eager above all to hold on to power and to serve the wealthy donors of the Republican Party. Mayer quotes John David Dyche, a conservative lawyer in Louisville who had been a McConnell admirer until recently and wrote an admiring biography of him. According to Dyche, McConnell “of course realizes that Trump is a hideous human being and utterly unfit to be president” but doesn’t do anything about it because the senator has “no ideology except his own political power.”

Far from being an odd couple, Trump and McConnell are a perfectly paired duo. They work well together as a grifter team. Trump is the clown who grabs all the attention, while McConnell picks the pockets of the distracted crowd.

As grotesque as Trump is, McConnell is worse. McConnell has been around longer and has helped create the conditions that made Trump’s rise possible. McConnell’s obstruction during the Obama years, including blocking the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, contributed to the demoralization of the Democratic base and the larger feeling in America that Washington is hopelessly gridlocked. In 2016 Trump skillfully exploited the anxiousness created by gridlock and sold himself as the outsider who can fix it.

Democrats are eager to defeat Trump in the fall election. But they should bear in mind that McConnell is the bigger villain. The goal should be to make sure McConnell loses his position as majority leader. Even sweeter would be if he were ejected from his seat.

Charles Booker resigned from his state Rep job to run full-time against McConnell. This morning he told me that "The reality is that Mitch McConnell controls so much of what happens in Washington. As reckless and dangerous as Trump is, it is Mitch McConnell’s absolute abandonment of his oath, our constitution, and our lives that has allowed Trump to balloon our deficit, uproot our progress on the world stage, and willfully ignore the chances to lead in the face of COVID-19. Donald Trump is an idiot, but Mitch McConnell is intentional. There is no progress for our country that includes him remaining in office. That is why I am building a movement of fed up and fired up Kentuckians to beat him."

The other progressive in the Kentucky Democratic primary is Mike Broihier, who has been endorsed by Marianne Williamson, This morning, Mike told us that "It was the slow realization that Trump was a symptom and McConnell the disease that pulled me into the fight to rid the Republic of him. In rare moments of honesty McConnell himself will tip his hand and tell us he is, '...changing America for ever,' with his agenda of, 'Judges, judges, judges.' The smoke and noise from the daily dumpster fire at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is perfect cover for him packing the federal bench with unqualified, ideologically driven judges with lifetime appointments. Judges that are hostile to women, hostile to racial minorities, hostile to LGBTQ persons, hostile to labor and hostile to immigrants. Long after Trump is gone and long after McConnell is gone generations of Americans will be dealing with the fallout of this tactic."

McConnell Is Literally Making The Pandemic Worse

Kentucky hasn't been hit too hard by the pandemic yet-- just 8,951 confirmed cases-- 2,004 cases per million. The residents are lucky that they have a governor willing to listen to public health experts and not a crackpot right-wing fringe motivated by Trumpist incompetence, personal ambition and dysfunction. The state's senior senator-- actually the junior one too-- aren't taking the pandemic seriously. And the senior senator matters-- he's Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. a self-described Grim Reaper for anything meant to help ordinary working families. Having become a multimillion by marrying the daughter of a Chinese shipping magnate who has been bribing him on behalf of both his own business and the government of China for years, he sure isn't feeling the urgency and anxiety most working families are feeling today.

Yesterday he told reporters in Louisville that there would probably be a fifth coronavirus relief bill "in the next month or so... It will not be the $3 trillion bill the House passed the other day. But there's still a likelihood that more will be needed." McConnell only has one interest right now-- indemnifying Big Business from law suits resulting from reopening too quickly in a way that sickens or even kills their employees and customers.

No wonder Bess Levin, writing for Vanity Fair last month, reminded readers to not forget to blame McConnell for the pandemic crisis. "More than anyone," she wrote, "the Senate majority leader enabled Trump, whose reckless leadership has made the covid-19 crisis much worse than it had to be. Something you’ve probably heard once or twice over the last month is that the coronavirus crisis in the United States is significantly worse than it had to be thanks to the leadership style of Donald Trump, the pillars of which include ignoring experts, not reading his briefing materials, and thinking that he, a man who can’t pronounce the word “Nevada,” is some kind of genius. Applied to the current situation, that meant downplaying the deadly virus even as it engulfed China and other parts of the world; refusing to “do anything” throughout January and February, despite dire warnings coming from his own officials; and not pushing for testing because he thought the numbers would hurt his reelection chances. And listening to the advice of his equally dim son-in-law. And focusing on the stock market instead of the actual health crisis. And calling COVID-19 “fake news” as recently as March 9. So yes, when you think about who deserves the most blame for the United States surpassing Italy for the country with the highest number of coronavirus deaths, the answer is obviously Donald Trump. But let us not also forget to spread some of that blame around to his neck-pouched enabler, Mitch McConnell... [There is an] extremely convincing argument that the Senate majority leader‘s decision to let Trump rule unchecked, in order to preserve his own standing, will be viewed one of the chief causes of thousands of American deaths."

McConnell Is Blocking Simple Non-Financial Aid To The Marijuana Industry... As Though He Were Still Living In The 1950s

As you know by now, on Friday House Democrats (+ Long Island Republican Pete King) passed a $3 trillion HEROES relief bill that is now being assessed by the Republican leaders in the Senate. But what you might not know is that the bill includes provisions for cannabis banking. It's basically a version of Ed Perlmutter's Secure And Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Bill (HR 1595), which passed last September and was consigned to oblivion by McConnell, even though it is a very popular piece of legislation that had 206 co-sponsors-- including 26 Republicans. It passed 321-103 every Democrat but Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL) plus 91 Republicans voting in favor.

But Greg Gianforte, who purports to representMontana, wasn't among them. We asked the progressive Democrat running for his soon to be open seat, state Rep. Tom Winter, how he would have voted, he told he wanted to paraphrase a former presidential candidate: "'I wrote the damn bill!' After taxes, taxes, and taxes, the next issue I heard the most about while knocking doors to flip an 11-point Trump district in '18 was legalizing marijuana. So I wrote the bill to do so, and now there are ballot initiatives in Montana using it as a framework. We are the only state that has had voters pass medicinal marijuana ballot initiatives twice-- both times with over 58% of the vote. It is shocking how much the Montana GOP has refused to listen to the voters on this issue. The majority of this state does not want the federal government involved in our personal lives. Of course it is the right thing to allow banks to work with small businesses selling a legal product. If people like Greg Gianforte would have listened to Montanans the first two times they told him where they stand on marijuana this would have been a no-brainer for our only representative. My guess is he doesn't have any stocks in this industry so he has no interest in doing what is right."

Cathy Kunkel, the Blue America-endorsed progressive running in central West Virginia is up against an anti-marijuana fanatic, Alex Mooney. "Banking reform for the cannabis sector is critical," she told me, "not just during the pandemic, but for future economic recovery. This is a growing industry with real economic potential to boost local agriculture in West Virginia."
 
Writing for Cheddar, Chloe Aiello reported on McConnell's '50s era nastiness and inability to take the marijuana industry seriously, about the whole project. The old closet queen said, sarcastically that "The bold new policy from Washington Democrats that will kick the coronavirus to the curb and save American families from this crisis, here it is, here it is: new annual studies on diversity and inclusion within the cannabis industry," mocking House Democrats in a speech on Thursday. "Maybe it's best if House Democrats focus on cannabis studies and leave economics to the rest of us. This is a totally unserious effort," he added.

Lobbyists and activists have been pushing for some sort of banking reform or financial relief for cannabis businesses to be included in coronavirus legislation. Although cannabis businesses have been deemed essential in many states, they cannot access federal aid, like small business loans and disaster relief. Amid the extraordinary conditions imposed by the pandemic, many of these businesses are struggling.

"The cannabis industry is getting hit with the same challenge everyone else is, but they don't have access to the funding that every other business has right now to continue to keep those people employed," said Keegan Peterson, founder and CEO of cannabis human resources management company Wurk.

Kevin Sabet, former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advisor and president of the anti-cannabis group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, seized on blockbuster cannabis sales in the days leading up to lockdown measures across various states as evidence the industry doesn't need federal aid.

"Millions of small business owners across the nation have seen their livelihoods dramatically affected by this pandemic. Numerous industries have been forced to completely shut down and have made great sacrifices to comply with shutdowns and limitations on their business operations. The marijuana industry has been a painfully obvious exception to this. This industry has used its lobbying arm to force state officials to keep their storefronts open, sued leaders who shut them down, and bragged incessantly about their revenues," Sabet said in a statement.

But Peterson, who has had front row seats to the devastation the pandemic has wreaked on an industry already suffering after a challenging 2019, said it's more nuanced than that.

"[Cannabis is] an essential business, but that doesn't mean that cannabis revenues are going through the roof. I think there has been a false narrative. Cannabis companies in March had their highest day in revenue, they also had their lowest day of revenue," he said. "Folks are talking about the good things that are happening at this time, and they are not being as open about the challenging things that are happening."

The SAFE Banking Bill would permit banks to transact with cannabis businesses, offering up much needed financial products like loans, credit, and debt funding at a time when many cannabis businesses are struggling.

David Wenger, an attorney who sits on the board of cannabis company Body and Mind, said that access to these various products would be a "game changer" for cannabis companies. Wenger and his colleague, Jeff Schultz, now a partner at Feuerstein Kulick, penned an op-ed in MarketWatch last year urging lawmakers to amend SAFE Banking to include activities regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, too. A change like that would grant U.S. cannabis companies access to the U.S. capital markets, inject cash in a growth industry, and, they argue, would coax bigger banks to jump into business with the cannabis industry

Regardless of whether Congress heeds their call to amend SAFE, they are supportive of wrapping the bill into a coronavirus stimulus package.

Cannabis industry advocates also argue that operating a cash-heavy business during the outbreak poses a health risk. Conflicting information on how long the novel coronavirus can live on surfaces and the likelihood of transmission from contact with infected items have prompted some businesses to shy away from cash altogether. In early March, the Federal Reserve even began quarantining bank notes received from Asia before releasing them back into circulation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"If the Treasury is quarantining cash, someone in the federal government believes it is unsafe to be handling physical cash, which begs the question: why are they forcing-- not permitting, forcing-- the cannabis industry to use cash, when they know it's unsafe?" Schultz said.

For now, the fate of the $3 trillion "HEROES Act," which seeks, among other things, $1 trillion for state and local governments, relief for student loans, hazard pay for health care workers, and another round of stimulus checks, is tenuous.

Worst President Ever + Worse Senate Majority Leader Ever = Bad Pandemic

The lede picture for Neil Irwin's chilling NY Times essay-- How Bailout Backlash and Moral Hazard Outrage Could Endanger the Economy wasn't of Trump or Mnuchin; it was a silhouette of a chinless, bespectacled turtle with this caption "Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol. He opposes federal bailouts of Democratic-leaning states with large public employee pension obligations." Irwin wrote that the economy is "in free fall, with tens of millions of people unemployed and countless businesses at risk of collapse" but that almost instantly "the political conversation has pivoted from whatever-it-takes determination toward a different feeling: outrage." Austeritarian conservatives are increasingly "focused not on preventing a potential depression, but on litigating which recipients of federal rescue are morally worthy and which are not." Republicans are adamantly opposed to-- and angered by-- "federal government support for state and local governments, and at expanded unemployment insurance benefits supporting the jobless."

In Bush's 2008 global financial crisis, the same worthless sacks of senatorial shit-- Irwin described them differently because it's The Times-- bitched and whined "about mortgage relief for home buyers who had borrowed more than they could afford-- a televised rant about one such program helped spawn the Tea Party movement."

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, raised the possibility in an April interview that states that found themselves short of cash should be able to allowed to go bankrupt. Though he later backed away from that position, he and other Republicans have made clear they don’t want Democratic-leaning states with large public employee pension obligations to be bailed out with federal money.

States are uniformly facing collapsing revenue because of the pandemic, raising the prospect that even those with sound pre-crisis finances will have to make deep cuts in the coming years. This could hold the economy back even once the private sector rebounds.

The Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s signature effort to pump money to smaller businesses that agree to keep their employees on staff, has proceeded amid recriminations over whether businesses are truly worthy if they have access to funding elsewhere.

Part of the problem was Congress’s decision to initially fund the program with $350 billion, far below the needs of smaller businesses looking to cover their payrolls, and to expand it in a second round. The limited availability of money created an atmosphere of scarcity in which any business that gets aid-- including large restaurant chains like Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and firms with venture-capital funding-- does so at the cost of another firm that might seem more worthy.

“The fact that there is more outrage over one bad business getting a P.P.P. loan than 100,000 companies deserving one but not getting one because of the anemic funding is ludicrous,” Mr. Lettieri said. “People have been chasing the shiny object of ‘who is most deserving, who isn’t, and where do you fall on the spectrum of need,’ which is a completely misguided way to approach this.”

The pandemic has no moral logic of its own. The steps that are most likely to revive the economy don’t depend on some abstract notion of what is fair. And outrage that some group you don’t like received help probably won’t make things better.

Mike Broihier, one of the progressives trying to defeat McConnell, told us last night that "Not surprisingly, McConnell's pitch to allow states to go bankrupt was couched as a Red State/Blue State conflict. Constantly appealing to what he believes are the worst angels of his fellow Kentuckians, McConnell wrongly bets that all evidence that blue states are net tax payers and red states, Kentucky among them, are net tax takers, will be ignored. This crass, classist appeal will only work with the Commonwealth's dimmest bulbs.  Fortunately, McConnell's visits to the Bluegrass State are so infrequent and brief that he doesn't realize he's played this trick too many times. Loathsome and unmissed ex-governor, Matt Bevin, tried this crap in 2019 and was send packing by teachers, grassroots organizers and, well, right thinking Kentuckians."

Early yesterday morning-- as it was announced that the U.S. was about to pass the 70,000 deaths milestone-- Trump was playing on his Twitter account, boasting about his "great reviews... for how well we are handling the pandemic." It almost made me feel sorry for whichever White House stooge is tasked with finding news clips to tickle his ego every morning.

As for McConnell, he's still polling as the most hated U.S. Senator and is increasingly vulnerable to go down the electoral tubes the same way Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin did last year when Democrat Andy Beshear beat him by just over 5,000 votes in a shocking repudiation of Trumpism. It's ironic that Beshear's hate line against the pandemic-- certainly at odds with what Bevin would have done-- is keeping the pandemic at bay in Kentucky. Other Trump extremist governors-- in effect, Bevin dopplegängers-- have catastrophic through-the-roof rates of infection:

• Pete Ricketts (R-NE)- 3,103 per million
• Eric Holcomb (R-IN)- 3,090 per million
• Kristi Noem (R-SD)- 3,087
• Kim Reynolds (R-IA)- 3,098 per million
• Brian Kemp (R-GA)- 2,850 per million
• Tate Reeves (R-MS)- 2,636 per million
• Bill Lee (R-TN)- 2,040 per million
• Ron DeSantis (R-FL)- 1,791 per million

Thanks to Beshear's relatively hard line, Kentucky's rate is just 1,155 infections per million, below the national average and a more manageable pandemic in McConnell's home state, despite McConnell and his party's approach.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

Moscow Mitch by Chip Proser

by Noah

It's not enough for a sociopathic traitor like Moscow Mitch McConnell to follow the lead of Donnie Psycho and strive to get as many Americans as possible infected with a plague. No, rather than delivering enough federal money to help states like New York and Illinois that are financially straining due to the coronavirus, Moscow Mitch smirks the smirk of a psycho and suggests that such states should just declare bankruptcy. Mr. Moscow also made a point of oh so cutely calling the bailouts of democratic states "Blue State Bailouts." So clever, Mitchie. Did you think that up all by yourself?

I remember another Republican sociopath, a corrupt president named Gerald Ford. Ford is known for two things; One, pardoning the crooked predecessor who gave him his job, and, two, telling New York, the nation's biggest city, to drop dead when it was undergoing financial troubles in the 1970s; three if you count the fact that Ford seemed to fall down a lot, probably because he, as LBJ once said, played too much college football without a helmet. But, it's the "Drop Dead" message that is most applicable here.

New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo had an instant response to Mr. Moscow's sick proposal. To paraphrase, Governor Cuomo pointed out that the state of New York annually kicks about in $116 Billion (That's Billion with a B) more into the annual federal fund than it takes out. Kentucky, on the other hand, puts its hand out and takes the opposite approach, taking out $148 Billion (With a B) more than it pays in. In other words, like most if not all states in the would be Confederacy, Kentucky is a taker state, or, as Governor Cuomo asked of Mr. Moscow, "Just who is the bailout state?" Of course, as this virus crisis deepens, McConnell is liable to be crying for more money for his state from New York and the rest of the ten states that pay in more than they take out. What should those states say to Moscow Mitch then? I know what I'd say. I'd tell him to call up his Russian friends and see if they'll send some more bags of rubles his way. They always have in the past, so why not now?

Whole states declaring bankruptcy would, among many other things, decimate the retirement pensions of their citizens and send a quick and brutal message that would trigger a cascading and unavoidable economic meltdown on Wall Street and cause a cataclysmic nationwide and worldwide depression. That would also make McConnell's twisted pal Vladimir smile bigly but when did any Republican politician ever give a rat's ass about anyone's retirement pension or anyone's quality of life other than their own? Keep in mind that McConnell and his party have also been generally trying to do away with Social Security since the moment FDR signed it into law in 1935. Along with ending things like voting rights, Medicare, and civil rights, gutting the Social Security program sits in the Republican Party Pantheon of Hallowed Goals. Jeez, you'd think the next thing the republicans might come up with is just telling us all to inject Lysol. All the while, of course Repug politicians intend to keep enjoying their own retirement perks which we the people pay for with our taxes. And, every night, McConnell drives home in his Welfare Cadillac, surrounded by security soldiers that we also pay for. This is a man who should be stripped naked, tied to the bumper and dragged home through glass every night. And salt the streets first!

Gerry Ford on the cover of the Daily News in the 1970s. The Republican Party, strove to be the top conduit  for misery even way back then