Perfect Example of Republican Party Strategy

For Republicans, perhaps especially Kentucky's Senator Mitch McConnell, it's always political party first and last. Forget the people, the nation, even Democracy, literally, at different times. Herewith, an excellent example.

Here's hoping our own Senators Blount and Hawley don't follow this example when it comes to President Biden's American Jobs Plan but I believe they are planning to vote against it.

Senator Hawley Has Outdone Himself Today

I couldn't believe Missouri's own Senator Josh Hawley and his Twitter post today: "MLB & the giant woke corporations keep telling Biden’s big lie about Georgia & election integrity. They want to run this country. They’ve been coddled by government for too long. We need to bust them up. Starting next week, I’ll introduce a trust busting agenda for 21st century."

Yes, corporations want to run America, all right. It's why they give Republicans hundreds of millions of dollars to put them in office. It's why and how we got the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, opening up our elections to yet more big, big money. Suddenly, the GOP is threatened because--whaddya' know?--Americans poured out to vote and their Orange Man lost the 2020 election. So now, those same Republicans in Georgia and 42 other states are trying to put into place laws to keep us, Americans, citizens, from voting. They and their ideas and policies are so unpopular, Republicans have found they can't get elected or re-elected unless or until they have fewer of us voting. So Jim Crow and more, here we go. Fortunately, some few corporate leaders have stood up and said they won't tolerate it. Consequently, suddenly Josh Hawley and the Republicans are against those corporations.

Quotes of the Day -- On Republicans and America

"The only thing Republicans are more scared of than facts are votes." --Middle Age Riot #VoteThemOut

"Instead of making it harder to vote...maybe Republicans should take a close look at whether they have bad ideas and people just don't want to support them." --Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary

Mitch McConnell and the Republicans now suddenly want to protect minority voting rights in the Senate but not voting rights for minorities. Know this, America. #VoteThemOut

Quote of the Day -- Republican Party Hypocrisy Edition

"While Trump was president, EVERY Democrat voted for the $2 trillion CARES Act, even though doing so helped Trump. While Biden is president, ZERO Republicans voted for the $1.9 trillion American Relief Plan, because hurting Biden is more important than helping Americans." -- Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen "The disconnect and hypocrisy of elected officials honoring front line, healthcare, daycare, grocery store workers, etc who many don’t make a living wage/$15 an hour, while simultaneously voting against a increase in the minimum wage is absolutely appalling." --Matthew Dowd @matthewjdowd

GOP Senator Mitch McConnell on Then-President Donald Trump and His Guilt

From Republican Party Senator Mitch McConnell's own words and mouth yesterday after Trump's acquittal on his impeachment trial and charges. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very full and complete indictment of then-sitting Republican Party President Donald J Trump on a treasonous, traitorous insurrection and attack on our vote, our votes, our election and nation's Capitol right down to our very Democracy itself.

" January 6th was a disgrace.

American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.

Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.

They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he’d lost an election.

The House accused the former president of, quote, ‘incitement.’ That is a specific term from the criminal law.

Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.

And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6th.

It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat’.

It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president.

I defended the president’s right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.

But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.

The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.

This was different.

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.

Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.

A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.

It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.

Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.

But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.

Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!

Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president.

Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

Later, even when the president did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.

And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.

In recent weeks, our ex-president’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.

Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.

That is an absurd deflection.

74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.

And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.

One person did...

From the article:

Transcript: Mitch McConnell’s Trump impeachment speech

Truth Is Already Coming Out on Trump

The truth is already starting to come out on this Republican Party President Trump and his administration. And even sooner than I thought. Or hoped.

McConnell: Trump 'provoked' crowd that stormed Capitol 

"Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has just accused President Trump of provoking the violent crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, saying: 'The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.'"

I tell you, it's only getting better and better, folks. The Orange Man is out tomorrow and the dirt is already starting to come out on him. I thought it would take at least a couple or a few weeks. He isn't even out and people are dishing on him. And people who are or were in his same political party.

More on the Trumpster and where he stands presently. On that first one, it seems he's already persona non grata in what was supposed to be his own political party. That's fantastic.

Pence, other GOP officials expected to skip Trump send-off

This next one has to hurt, given how Trump is always into popularity and saying he's the best at everything.

Trump stock performance falls short of Obama, Clinton

George Conway: Trump's 'influence will wane as he fades into history as a pariah'

Facebook has no current plan to end the Trump suspension: report

57% of US Voters Want Trump Barred From Seeking Office Ever Again: Poll

Think happy thoughts, campers.

Timely, Thanksgiving Day Reminder of Trickle Down Economics

 If "trickle-down economics" is or were so great.

Meanwhile, this is a line for food recently in our own Dallas, Texas.

A growing number of Americans are going hungry

26 million now say they don’t have enough to

eat, as the pandemic worsens and holidays near

54 million Americans are going hungry

40 million Americans are at risk of eviction

Thanks, Senator McConnell.

Thanks, Republicans.

Quote of the Day -- Thanksgiving, Republican Party Edition

A staggering one in EIGHT Americans reported they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat in the past week. That’s nearly 26 million Americans who are going hungry the week of Thanksgiving. And a full quarter of out-of-work Americans with children at home reported not having enough food to eat. The numbers are worse for Black households than for white ones: 22 percent of Black households reported going hungry in the past week, over 2.5 times the rate for white households. Food banks are overwhelmed trying to meet the new surge in demand: “We'll be hard pressed to keep up. We’re just bracing for the worst,” said the CEO of Feeding Texas.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate last week and let them skip town early for Thanksgiving. He and his do nothing Senate Republicans get to go home to their families and sit down to a table bursting with food, while 26 million of their fellow Americans starve. As long as their rich friends are happy now that the stock market is soaring, they couldn’t be bothered to serve their constituents. It’s one of the grossest abdications of duty I’ve ever seen. There are no words to truly describe Mitch McConnell’s moral bankruptcy.

--Robert Reich

Thanks, Senator McConnell

Thanks, Republicans.

Links:

Robert Reich

Robert Reich - Wikipedia

Mitch McConnell Doesn't Trust the White House

 Did you see this in the news?

McConnell said he hasn't visited the White House in over 2 months because he doesn't think Trump's COVID-19 protocols are safe

From the article:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday said he has not been to the White House in more than two months, suggesting that the Trump administration's lax COVID-19 protocols make him feel unsafe.

The Kentucky Republican said that since early August he's instead opted to speak with President Donald Trump by phone.

"I actually haven't been to the White House since August the 6th because my impression was their approach to how to handle this was different than mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing," McConnell said at an event in Kentucky.

So understand what this means, America.

The Republican Party Senate Majority Leader himself, Mitch McConnell, doesn't himself trust this President, this White House on this very killing pandemic.

Why should we?

Why should anyone?

Quote of the Day -- Possible Supreme Court Hypocrisy Edition

 

Senator McConnell must, must be held to his own standard. As of today, Saturday, September 19, it is 45 days from this next Presidential election. There should be NO NEW SUPREME COURT JUSTICE proposed this year by this President. It was good enough for Senator McConnell and the Republicans in 2016 with President Obama and Merrick Garland. The same should absolutely be held to today.

Fortunately, Senators Collins and Murkowski have both already publicly said they will and can in no way support a replacement for Justice Ginsberg before the election with this President.

Lots of Republicans and Conservatives Drubbing This President Today and Lately

 I'm telling you, all kinds of negative press is coming out today on this President and all I'm seeing is actually from Republicans themselves. Herewith, a list.

First from David Brooks and The New York Times:

Where Do Republicans Go From Here?

The party looks brain-dead at every spot Trump touches

Jonathan V. Last thinks President Trump is here forever. Last, the editor of The Bulwark, a conservative site that’s been hostile to Trump, argues that if Trump loses in November, he’ll claim he was cheated out of the election. He’ll force other Republicans to back up his claim. He’ll get a TV show, hold rallies, be coy about running again in 2024.

He’ll still be the center of everything Republican. Ambitious Republicans will have to lash themselves to the husk of the dying czar if they want to have any future in the party. The whole party will go Trump-crazed and brain-dead for another four years.

I salute Last for coming up with a post-2020 scenario even more pessimistic than my own!

Next up, a story and link from a conservative and Republican who has a new book out on this President and his political party.

Veteran GOP Strategist Takes On Trump — And His Party — In 'It Was All A Lie'

Veteran political consultant Stuart Stevens has spent years working as a strategist for Republican campaigns, including the presidential bids of Bob Dole, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. But Stevens didn't support the party's candidate in the 2016 presidential election — and he wasn't alone.

"In 2016, when I went out and attacked Trump on television," he says, "I would say maybe a third of the party hierarchy would email me and thank me for doing this."

But Stevens notes that many of the Republicans who had privately voiced concern about Trump changed their tune on election night. "I started getting emails like, 'Could you maybe delete that email?' " he says.

"It's an extraordinary contradiction," Stevens says. "I've never heard any Republican office-holder speak of President Trump as if he should be president. ... They know he shouldn't be president. [But] he is president, and they still support him."

And that story, of Mr. Stevens' new book, is so good, here's another article on it.

Longtime GOP strategist says he’ll ‘work with Democrats’ to defeat Trump

Stuart Stevens is one of the Republican Party’s most successful campaign strategists, with a career spanning decades. In his revealing new book, “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump,” Stevens admits the GOP uses race as an issue to divide Americans and win elections -- and says the party has abandoned its principles in the Trump era.

This next one is especially brutal, not just on Trump but on the entire Republican Party. And it's tough not just on this President and not just on the Republican Party--that's a lot--but it's brutal on Missouri's own Senator Josh Hawley, too, here folks.

Conservative Columnist Explains Why GOP May Not Deserve To Have A Future

“Trump’s entire presidency has been an affront to what conservatives used to think their movement was all about,” wrote Max Boot of The Washington Post

Conservative columnist Max Boot explained in his latest column in The Washington Post why the GOP “doesn’t deserve to have a future” if its best alternative to Donald Trump is four senators who’ve enabled the president every step of the way.

Boot, a vocal critic of the Trump administration, recalled a column by The New York Times’ David Brooks that suggested “a high-minded debate to define the nature of the GOP is underway” among Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Josh Hawley, (Mo.), Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Ben Sasse (Neb.).

“But I’m sorry, I can’t take any of their high-minded blather seriously,” Boot wrote in his op-ed Monday. “Not when they have spent the past four years acting as enablers for the worst president in U.S. history — or at least the worst in the past 151 years.”

Boot asked “what is conservative about” multiple Trump scandals, policies and controversies that the four senators either endorsed or remained silent about.

“Trump’s entire presidency has been an affront to what conservatives used to think their movement was all about,” Boot wrote. “And yet at every step of the way, Rubio, Hawley, Cotton and Sasse have been Trump’s willing accomplices.”

Next up is this from right next door in Nebraska:

Sasse responds to Trump: 'America doesn't have kings'

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) on Monday defended his opposition to President Trump's use of executive orders to address the coronavirus pandemic, hours after the president publicly called the GOP senator out over his criticism.

Sasse — in a note tweeted from his campaign account and signed "Gym Rat" — indicated he would rather have the discussion privately with Trump but added "since you moved our conversation from private to public, here we are."

"On the topic that had you mad this weekend: No president — whether named Obama or Trump or Biden or AOC — has unilateral power to rewrite immigration law or to cut taxes or to raise taxes. This is because America doesn't have kings," Sasse wrote.

Finally today is this from former Republican member of the House of Representatives Joe Scarborough, now from MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program:

‘Wake up and read some history’: Joe Scarborough blasts ‘stupid’ Trump in epic rant

On MSNBC Tuesday, Joe Scarborough ripped into President Donald Trump’s ignorance, and outlined how it is threatening the entire country, telling him to “wake up and read some history.”

“I remember talking to them. I remember other people going and talking to them, and Jared’s opinion and Donald Trump’s opinion was we don’t need to know history because look what happened in the past,” said Scarborough. “In fact, they were saying they didn’t even need to know about Middle East history. You know, tried to talk to Jared about 1967 boundaries, about the ’73 war, about Camp David, just about all of it. And the attitude remained, I don’t need to know about history, stop talking about what’s been done in the past because everybody failed.”

“If you had just listened to what General Mattis said, and other advisers were trying to tell you, we’d be in a much better place right now,” said Scarborough. “But no, you had your own ideas about North Korea … you were stupid enough to believe you could go over there and talk to a communist who put people through paper shredders, you were stupid enough to believe you could play Apprentice with him. You got used and fooled, and America is in more danger today from North Korea than ever before. You thought you could invite the Chinese over to Mar-a-Lago for dessert. Oh, isn’t this good dessert? You thought you are going to win over President Xi? You followed him along like a little puppy dog.”

I'm telling you, folks, it's unprecedented in our nation and our nation's history how many people from this President's own political party want to make sure he isn't reelected.

On to November!

VOTE!!

And VOTE BLUE!!

Links:

A devastating indictment of the Republican Party from a GOP insider

GOP Finance chairman raises concerns about Trump push to make payroll tax deferral permanent

Kasich on decision to speak at Democratic convention

Dr. Ranney: 'Absolute abdication of responsibility' by executive branch on COVID-19 response

GOP Finance chairman raises concerns about Trump push to make payroll-tax deferral permanent

Kentuckians Turn on McConnell as Economy Implodes

Poll: 59 percent of voters disapprove of Trump's decision to share videos promoting hydroxychloroquine

Republican Party Covid Concerns

 

Thanks, fellas!

And Now the Senate GOP is Going to Waste Yet More Time and Still More of Our Money

Did you see this? It hit yesterday.

Senate GOP to Ramp Up Obama-Era Probes

From the article:

Senate Republicans are preparing to ramp up their Obama-era probes, pushing the controversial investigations back into the spotlight as the 2020 elections heat up.

The efforts have sparked high-profile tensions with Senate Democrats and public rebukes from former Vice President Joe Biden’s orbit. They view the efforts as an attempt to meddle in the 2020 elections, where Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee.

But with the Senate coming back to Washington on Monday, and the number of legislative days quickly dwindling, Republicans are preparing to step up their efforts.
So much to say about this.

The Republicans are desperate. We're coming into the home stretch of the election.

Instead of coming anywhere near close to investigating literally, honestly, factually, provenly the most corrupt presidential administration in the nation's history and also, now, in the middle of the worst, most killing international pandemic in more than 100 years, they're going to spend time and our money investigating the previous administration.

Shameful. Stupid. Huge waste. Huge misdirection.

Thanks, Republicans.

Link:

Senate Republicans Don’t Really Want to Govern in the Era of Trump

Mitch McConnell has no use for power other than acquiring and maintaining it.

Quote of the Day -- From One Helluva Good, Maybe Even Important Article

There is an excellent, even possibly important article at The New Republic today I just saw because of blogger, social media friend Matt Payton over at his blog Matt Payton's Tumble-o-rama I can't recommend highly enough.

Throw the Bums Out

We are in the midst of a world-historic failure of governance. 

Why isn’t anyone in charge acting like they are responsible for it?

Is our only recourse to negligence and misfeasance truly to wait for a chance to vote the bums out?

This is an ongoing catastrophe. 

Every day brings a new reason to feel outraged or numbed by its scope.

Here's the quote of the day:

If Donald Trump loses in November, our political system’s last true believers will think that the system worked precisely as it is supposed to: It held him accountable. But this is an ongoing catastrophe of government as a whole. Every day brings a new reason to feel outraged or numbed by the scope of the disaster. We haven’t begun to grapple with the breadth of it. Governors, big-city mayors, public health officials, and congressional leaders should be resigning in disgrace, firing those responsible, groveling for forgiveness, or fleeing town under cover of night.

Instead, they are mainly just waiting for the worst to be over, until the moment they, too, can put out celebratory posters. That the majority of our leaders seem not to be embarrassed or ashamed of their failures—some may not even think of them as failures—raises doubts about whether good governance is even possible in our political system. Americans have, this year, shown a heroic willingness to take to the streets in protest and riot. If they have not yet demanded accountability and consequences for the officials who presided over this unprecedented failure of the state, it might be because hardly anyone has real faith in the ability of their government—at the federal, state, county, or city level—to accomplish anything but policing and jailing people. That isn’t cynicism so much as resignation.

Go. Read the article. It's excellent. It gives great information and asks great questions.

Very Hopeful Electoral News

 Check out these recent polls:

New Poll Has Sara Gideon Up, 51-42, Over Susan Collins

Senator Graham Only Ahead by 4 Points in Polling

Amy McGrath takes the lead over Mitch McConnell in Kentucky

Imagine if Senators Collins and Graham and McConnell all go down this Fall and Trump is thrown out of the White House--as looks very likely--and we also keep the House and take the Senate.

Holy Mary, Mother of Goodness, folks!

VOTE!!

And VOTE BLUE!!

And if you can, help others vote!

BLUE WAVE!!

My Biggest Concern About This President--and His Political Party

"The Week" hit the nail on the head currently.

The Fabric of America Is Coming Apart

No overstatement, no exaggeration. A bit from the article:

Mass unrest engulfed cities across the United States over the weekend, as thousands of people protested the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and police typically responded with violence. In some relatively isolated cases, riots and looting broke out — including in Washington, D.C., where President Trump turned off the lights at the White House and hid in a bunker.

It seems the United States was a powder keg just waiting for a spark. Police incompetence and brutality — carried out at enormous expense to the American taxpayer — have only added to the intolerable daily burden of poverty and misery experienced by the American working class, particularly its black and brown members. The fabric of America is coming apart.

Race protests and riots in the middle of the worst, most killing international pandemic the world has seen in over 100 years, with yet more tax cuts for the already-wealthy, with heavy spending to help Americans during the pandemic and so, heavy, heavy national debt, with absurdly low tax rates for the already-wealthy and corporations and so much more. We have problems, America.

Then this President is fomenting yet more violence, virtually each time he speaks, in the worst racial protests we've seen since the Rodney King riots of 1992, if not the Watts riots in the middle 60s.

Then Paul Krugman penned a similarly themed article for the New York Times.

Trump Takes Us to the Brink

A bit from it:

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that America as we know it is on the brink.

How did we get here? The core story of U.S. politics over the past four decades is that wealthy elites weaponized white racism to gain political power, which they used to pursue policies that enriched the already wealthy at workers’ expense.

Until Trump’s rise it was possible — barely — for people to deny this reality with a straight face. At this point, however, it requires willful blindness not to see what’s going on.

...I still see occasional news reports that describe Trump as a “populist.” But Trump’s economic policies have been the opposite of populist: They have been relentlessly plutocratic, centered largely on a successful effort to ram through huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and a so far unsuccessful attempt to take health insurance away from poor and working-class families.

Nor have Trump’s trade wars brought back the good jobs of yore. Even before the coronavirus plunged us into depression, Trump had failed to deliver major employment growth in coal mining or manufacturing. And farmers, who supported Trump by large margins in 2016, have suffered huge losses thanks to his trade wars.

So what has Trump really offered to the white working class that makes up most of his base? Basically, he has provided affirmation and cover for racial hostility.

We have so, so many problems, so many national issues and we're not addressing them.

Meanwhile, this was his Tweet today, 2 hours ago:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump·

D.C. had no problems last night. Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great (thank you President Trump!).

The nation is coming apart and he can only pat himself on the back. Stunning.

We know what needs to happen:

Trump must be removed. 

So must his congressional enablers.

What is most encouraging to me is that this article, this opinion piece was penned by uber conservative, ultra-Republican Party supporting George Will, not some "Leftist", Liberal member of the Democratic Party. Mr. Will has been writing similar pieces since Trump has been in office, at least. He sees this man Trump for what and who he is and knows its bad, really bad, for the nation.

Here's hoping, folks.

We have to take our nation back. We have to take it back for the people.

Vote. Always vote. And yes, you guessed it, vote blue.

We can do this.

We must.

What Must Happen November 3rd

Who is Worse: Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell?

He’s maybe the most dangerous politician of my lifetime. He’s helped transform the Republican Party into a cult, worshiping at the altar of authoritarianism. He’s damaged our country in ways that may take a generation to undo. The politician I’m talking about, of course, is Mitch McConnell.

Two goals for November 3, 2020: The first and most obvious is to get the worst president in history out of the White House. That’s necessary but not sufficient. We also have to flip the Senate and remove the worst Senate Majority Leader in history.

Like Trump, Mitch McConnell is no garden-variety bad public official. McConnell puts party above America, and Trump above party. Even if Trump is gone, if the Senate remains in Republican hands and McConnell is reelected, America loses because McConnell will still have a chokehold on our democracy.

This is the man who refused for almost a year to allow the Senate to consider President Obama’s moderate Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland.

And then, when Trump became president, this is the man who got rid of the age-old Senate rule requiring 60 Senators to agree on a Supreme Court nomination so he could ram through not one but two Supreme Court justices, including one with a likely history of sexual assault.

This is the man who rushed through the Senate, without a single hearing, a $2 trillion tax cut for big corporations and wealthy Americans – a tax cut that raised the government debt by almost the same amount, generated no new investment, failed to raise wages, but gave the stock market a temporary sugar high because most corporations used the tax savings to buy back their own shares of stock.

McConnell refuses to support what’s needed for comprehensive election security – although both the U.S. intelligence community and Special Prosecutor Mueller say Moscow is continuing to hack into our voting machines and to weaponize disinformation through social media.

McConnell has earned the nickname “Moscow Mitch” because he’s doing exactly what Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump want him to do – leave America vulnerable to another Putin-supported victory for Trump.

McConnell is also blocking bipartisan background-check legislation for gun sales, even after the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, El Paso and Odessa, Texas.

So even if Trump is out of the White House, if McConnell remains Senate Majority Leader he will not allow a Democratic president to govern.

He won’t allow debate or votes on Medicare for All, universal pre-K, a wealth tax, student loan forgiveness, or the Green New Deal. He won’t allow confirmation votes on judges nominated by a Democratic president.

The good news is McConnell is the least popular senator in the country with his own constituents. He’s repeatedly sacrificed Kentucky to Trump’s agenda – for example, agreeing to Trump’s so-called emergency funding for a border wall, which would take $63 million away from projects like a new middle school on the border between Kentucky and Tennessee.

McConnell is even cut funding for black lung disease suffered by Kentucky coal miners. I know from my years as labor secretary that coal mining is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and the number of cases of incurable black lung disease has been on the rise. But when a group of miners took a 10-hour bus ride to Washington this past summer to ask McConnell to restore the funding, McConnell met with them for one minute and then refused to help them. No wonder Democrats are lining up in Kentucky to run against Moscow Mitch in 2020.

The not-so-good news is that McConnell is up for re-election the same day as Donald Trump, and Trump did well in Kentucky in 2016. Which means we have to help organize Kentucky, just as we have to organize other states that may not be swing states in the presidential election but could take back the Senate.

Consider Georgia: Republican Senator Johnny Isakson is retiring, meaning both of Georgia’s Senate seats are now up for grabs. And this one extra seat—in a state that is trending blue—could be the tipping point that allows Democrats to win enough seats to end GOP control of the Senate.

Trump has to go, but so does McConnell.

Here’s what you can do: Wherever you are in the country, you can donate to McConnell’s challengers. If you live in or near Kentucky, you can get out and knock doors or make calls. Or if you have friends or family in the state, encourage them to get involved.

As to the question of who is worse, Trump or McConnell — the answer is that it’s too close to call. The two of them have degraded and corrupted American democracy. We need them both out.

Here’s what you can do: Wherever you are in the country, you can donate to McConnell’s challengers. If you live in or near Kentucky, you can get out and knock doors or make calls. Or if you have friends or family in the state, encourage them to get involved.

As to the question of who is worse, Trump or McConnell — the answer is that it’s too close to call. The two of them have degraded and corrupted American democracy. We need them both out.

Quote of the Day -- On Today's Republican Party

From George Orwell, born June 25, 1903

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. 

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. 

We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. 

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. 

We are not like that. 

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. 

Power is not a means; it is an end. 

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. 

Now you begin to understand me.” 

― George Orwell, "1984"

The Current Republican Party: Sunday Edition

GOP Jesus.

Notes and Observations of a Republican National Convention, Night One

Monday, Night 1

According to one of the panelists just now on PBS, Melania Trump doesn't want Donald to be president, either.

Suddenly I like her.
___________________________

Good God. Tom Cotton.

If there's a bigger, more empty demagogue, I don't know them.
___________________________

Tom Cotton, a nearly bleached white boy from Arkansas, saying we're all born equal.

If he were any less informed someone would have to tell him how to breathe.

___________________________

"No enemy the American military can't defeat....."

Well, except Vietnam.

And Iraq.

And Afghanistan.

___________________________

For the Republicans, at this political party convention of theirs, to bemoan the shootings in our nation of late when they and their blinding support of guns and the NRA and their constant blocking of required background checks for mental stability and criminal history all got us to where we are is nearly maddening.

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Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, bitching about not enough jobs in America. Not one Republican in Congress all the way back to 2008, ever wrote, proposed or tried to pass a jobs/infrastructure bill for those jobs, improved infrastructure and a rejuvenated economy.

Then he goes on to say "Donald Trump will kill Obama trade."

What?

He wants more jobs but then he wants to kill "Obama trade"?

What the hell is Obama trade?

What is that old fool rambling about?

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"Thank you to the Cleveland Police Department for protecting us!"

---Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani

But we are not honoring your request to deny open carry of weapons at our convention!

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How rich is that, for Republicans, now, to claim Hillary is a liar?

Compared to Donald Trump?

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"Donald Trump loves all people!"

--Rudy Giuliani

Yeah, just not Muslims. Or Mexicans. Or gays. Or women. Or the poor. Or the disabled or physically-challenged.

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If the Republicans didn't want the power and the White House back again, they would be embarrassed. Embarrassed by this candidate Donald Trump. And they would know they should be.

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I hope the Democratic Party doesn't miss out on the opportunity to hear from an underwear model and their opinion on this campaign for the leader of the nation for at least the next 4 years.
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Stephen Colbert is savaging The Donald on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert just now. It's pretty wonderful.

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The Republican National Convention, 2016.

The gift that keeps on giving.