Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell

That happened.

This is the first blog post I’ve posted since the end of the Trump presidency on Wednesday at noon. Congratulations, America – we got the stiffs off the property. That’s the good news. As in previous years when presidents I despised were defeated and sent packing, my inauguration day focus was on the departure of the jackass, which I watched this week with great pleasure. In the end, Trump slunk away out the back door of the White House, into his government provided chopper, over to Joint Base Andrews where he gave a farewell address that, one would hope, every school child will learn by heart … just so that there’s a chance we will never have to do this again. (Fat chance, right? This is America, after all.) “Have a good life,” said the now ex-president in one of his last utterances as Chief Executive of the nation. Like that’s a choice, right? He’s had one, but that was preordained by the gods of money.

The network coverage of the transition of power was about what you would expect. The focus tends to be on the pomp and circumstance, the traditions, the contrasts between the incoming and outgoing administrations, the bipartisan spirit of continuance, etc. Inasmuch as the riotous attack on the Capitol building took place only two weeks before the inaugural ceremony, it was impossible for them to avoid the inherently divisive nature of what was taking place. No matter how much they show Mitch McConnell grinning ear to ear (behind his mask, of course) or Roy Blunt joking about Amy Klobuchar, the fact remains that the Republican party was all-in for Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election, that more than 145 members of the House caucus voted not to accept the electoral count, and that more than eighty percent of registered Republicans believe the president handled himself well during the transition period. It takes more than a little bunting to conceal that magnitude of support for, frankly, what amounted to an attempted coup.

Still, let’s dwell for a moment on the fact that Trump and his minions are gone. Let’s take a moment to celebrate the fact that this would-be autocrat no longer has his finger on the nuclear trigger, or the other vast powers of the presidency. Let us rejoice in the fact that his attempted coup was a failure, even though it provides a road map for future coup plotters. Let us be thankful that there has thus far been no replay of the pitched attack that took place on January 6, though many of the responsible parties remain at large and their enablers in Congress remain in office. Let us be hopeful that the new administration will deal seriously with the COVID crisis and other priorities, even though we know we will have to push them to do the right thing.

Indeed, the best way for us to celebrate this transition – and the end of that awful thing that happened these past four years – is to stay on our toes and remain active. That’s the only path forward.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Making them pay.

Mitch McConnell and the people he represents (i.e. not so much his Kentucky constituents as mega-donors across the nation) realized their decades-long dream this week – the seating of a sixth hyper-conservative Supreme Court justice who will very likely play an important role in rolling back labor rights, voting rights, the regulatory power of federal agencies, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and much more in the decades to come. Stick a fork in it: the Supreme Court is now locked down by reactionaries for the foreseeable future, thanks to the determination and ruthlessness of the Republicans and the lack of focus and passion on the part of Democrats. We had three major electoral opportunities to regain control of the Court since 2000, and we blew every one of them, and now we’ll have to deal with the consequences.

Readers of this blog and listeners to my podcast, Strange Sound, will know that I grew up in a white, suburban, solidly Republican town in upstate New York, and it will surprise no one to hear that many of my former high school classmates had cause to celebrate the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett this week. I have to say, though, what I saw instead was a shocking amount of whining on the part of my old Republican friends. Instead of high-fiving each other over the awesome news that any future progressive legislation will be knocked back by judicial fiat until kingdom come, they were screaming about the possibility that a new Democratic administration would “pack the courts”, do away with the filibuster, ruin the Senate as a “deliberative” body, etc. Seriously? These folks need to take a day off once in a while.

Of course, that is the source of their strength, in a certain respect. This is a movement fueled by aggrievement. The Republicans have never, ever forgiven the Democrats for failing to confirm Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork back in 1987, when they held the majority. They held a similar grudge over the hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas back in 1991. (Mind you, in both of these cases, the ultimate result was the seating of a tremendously conservative justice on the Supreme Court.) They fumed over George H.W. Bush’s loss in 1992, and subjected Clinton to eight solid years of investigation because of their resentment. This anger is part of what animates them, and I think we need to borrow some of this for our own movement. The Republicans must be made to pay a political price for this, not just in this election, but into perpetuity. We must turn the Garland nomination obstructionism and the Barrett confirmation into our equivalent of the right’s Bork obsession – painful losses that galvanize us to fight all the harder. Our politicians must remind the voters of these wrongs over and over and over.

Anger can be useful, if it’s channeled in the right way. After what happened this past week, I would think we on the left would be more than ready to turn up the heat under these fuckers, and make them pay. We shall see.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Handmaid’s tale.

Probably the most amazing thing about the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation process is the degree to which she and all of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee insist that there’s no underlying agenda behind her nomination, even though that agenda has been the most consistently central motivating force in GOP politics for the last four decades. That’s no exaggeration – this has been their core mission since the dawn of the Regan era. It’s been a relentless push over the course of forty years on the part of conservative politicians, political action groups, and the obscenely rich funders who back them, quietly and not so quietly. And yet they all sit in that Senate committee room and attempt to gaslight the American public, making stirring speeches about the roles of the coordinate branches of government and the crucial distinction between politics and civics, assuring us that they’re only interested in applying constitutional principles in a fair and measured way.

If you believe that, then you might be interested in this nice bridge I have for sale. Make no mistake: Barrett is an extremist, and a relatively young one at that – if she is confirmed, which seems more than likely, she will probably serve on that court for forty years or more. That means bloodcurdlingly reactionary decisions on a range of issues, from reproductive rights to same-sex marriage to the constitutionality of the ACA to the outcome of elections. Judge Barrett could not even acknowledge long settled statutory prohibitions on voter intimidation, nor her thoughts on the peaceful transfer of power following a national election. There are issues that she does have an opinion on; she has made that very clear in the form of open letters in publications, speeches, and other means. But we’re expected to believe that those opinions will not play a role in her jurisprudence. My. Smoking. Ass.

We’ve been here before, folks, right? Republican nominees being tight lipped about the very things that put them in front of that committee in the first place. We know that she was chosen by the Federalist Society and others, who pushed her forward for Trump, and our insane clown president of course signed off on the appointment. She has the votes … I’m certain that’s partly why Mitch McConnell is moving forward with this now. So why the hell not just say what you think, expound on the depredations of available abortion services (and birth control), and then flip everyone off? She should then do a little dance out of the room – when McConnell calls the vote, it will be all over. Sure, other things can happen …. but will they? The GOP has the power, and they will use it. It’s to the point where we’re placing a Taliban-like religious extremist on the court – one whose secret society group, People of Praise, had her referring to herself as a handmaid. Seriously, people? We can’t do better than this?

We’re facing a 6-3 Supreme Court, and we have to encourage leaders on the center-left to do the right things to counteract their antidemocratic powers. I’ll talk about some specifics on Strange Sound, so be sure to tune in.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

Old faithful.

You know what’s really hilarious about American politics? It’s when news people, commentators, and even politicians themselves expect someone like Mitt Romney to act like someone who totally isn’t Mitt Romney – that is, someone who has an ounce of integrity or any impulse beyond self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. That was the spectacle this week, in the wake of Justice Ginsburg’s not-wholly-unanticipated passing. Almost immediately the speculation started bubbling up through cable television and the internet …. what will Romney do? Will he stand up to Trump and McConnell? Will he insist on fairness and a single standard that applies to both major political parties? I mean, it’s a regular laugh riot. Sure … Mitt Romney is going to stand between the GOP and the fulfillment of one of its most cherished goals: a radical transformation of the judiciary from top to bottom. Really, people?

As someone who has spent a good deal of time online doing bad imitations of Romney, I have to say that he has done his best to conform with my distorted caricature of him as a cluelessly greedy maladroit who spouts almost as much nonsense as his president. Today Romney described America as a “center-right” country. I suppose from his perspective it is, as the tiny number of people who own and run America probably fit that description, and those are the only people he interacts with. A little harder to grasp was his claim that his liberal “friends” had grown used to the idea of having a liberal Supreme Court, but that that is “not in the stars.” Not sure what he’s getting at – the Court has been majority conservative for almost fifty years, since the Nixon era. No one on the left who’s under the age of seventy has ever had the opportunity to get used to the idea of a liberal SC. I’m starting to wonder if maybe Mitt doesn’t allow himself a little pull off of a snifter once in a long while.

A couple of days later, Romney put himself back into relatively good graces with the never-Trump squad by tweeting his disapproval of Trump’s comments about not committing to a peaceful transfer of power. Pretty low hanging fruit, that – Hey, everybody! Romney’s nominally against a coup d’etat, at least on Twitter! Give him a freaking medal!

Okay, well … now that I’ve ripped him a new asshole (no charge, Mitt – now you can shit over your help twice as much ), I should get to the larger point that I wanted to make. Simply, don’t watch Republicans for signs of integrity or commitment to institutional norms, etc. Let me see if I can put this simply for the credulous media that incessantly speculate about these things: Republicans only care about winning. That’s it. The country can go straight to hell – and right now, it most certainly is. They don’t give a flying fuck. If the price of continuing a Republican presidency is democracy itself, then apparently that’s fine with them. They are a death cult, yes, but just as bad, they are comfortable with the notion of authoritarianism and an end to any pretense of electoral accountability. Just the fact that the Trump campaign has spoken with GOP state legislators about subverting the will of the voters should be enough to convince anyone of that.

Make your plans, people. This could be the fight of our lives.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.

In the white room.

Three big Supreme Court decisions this week, all stemming from one big electoral decision we all made two years ago. If one were to make the point that elections have consequences, one could hardly do it more effectively than by offering these disastrous judicial outcomes as evidence. For the life of me, I will never understand why Americans on the left side of the political spectrum do not consider the makeup of the Supreme Court (and the federal judiciary more broadly) as a voting issue of primary importance. I may be thinking about a lot of things when I mark that ballot, but no single item more than that of who will be deciding these cases for the next 30 years.

Trump's new BFF.This fact is about to be brought home to us all in a far more profound way: Justice Kennedy has announced that he will retire at the end of next month, and I have no doubt that Trump and McConnell will ram a nominee through the confirmation process faster than anyone can imagine. That will lock in a 5-4 reactionary majority on the Court that will be with us for a generation, reversing Roe v. Wade, detonating the remnants of the Voting Rights Act, and generally demonstrating that the Court cannot be relied upon to serve as a bulwark against aggressive extremism. I was never a big fan of Kennedy. Sure, he was the fifth vote on some crucial cases affecting LGBTQ rights and so on, but he is a stingy old stick who apparently isn’t even giving a second thought to allowing this unstable president to choose his successor.

It’s revenge of the white people. With the demographic tide turning against Republicans, the only way they can continue to win elections is through gerrymandering, voter fraud accusations, and an attack on the franchise wherever and whenever brown people dare to exercise it. They’ve made their way into power, and now they are bending every effort to close and lock the door behind them. They are able to keep us in their little white room because, since 2009, we have been either unable or unwilling to stop them from building and consolidating their control of government at every level.

So, what we have now is the same problem we had two, four, eight, and ten years ago. We just need to be willing to fight back in as many ways as are available to us. One is voting. Another is protest. But first and foremost, contact your senators and tell them to dig in, pull out the stops, and do whatever they can to keep Trump from appointing another Gorsuch.

luv u,

jp

Short takes (July edition).

Another one of those weeks spent drinking from the political firehose. I’m going to try to run through a few of the items that have been top-of-mind for me over the last few days. Let me know if my list looks anything like yours.

Saudi-US cooperation at workYemen Horror. The WHO reported that cholera is spreading like wildfire in war-ravaged Yemen, infecting more than 400,000 people with almost 1,900 deaths attributed to the outbreak. This is in addition to the many thousands killed by the Saudi-led and U.S.-supported terror bombing of this unfortunate country. Since Congress is all about sanctions this week, one would hope they would consider slapping a few on the freaks running this horror show from Riyadh. Fat fucking chance. This is a bipartisan atrocity and it will only stop when we insist upon it.

Cracker abuse. Trump is unloading on his pal Jeff Beauregard Sessions, talking as though the AG’s job consists entirely of running interference against any investigative probes that come too near the President. Can’t say as I feel sorry for that racist old cracker – at his age, he should know better how to pick his friends. Better start ironing that bedsheet, Jeff-boy.

Trumpcare Fail. Okay, this started out to be a rant about John McCain and how he was dragging himself back to Washington right after surgery to deny millions of other Americans the ability to, well, have surgery when it’s needed. I was going to say that you can never count on him to do the right thing, but then he shocked me by doing the right thing, so credit where credit is due – he helped to kill the Obamacare repeal. I say Obamacare repeal because that’s what it has always been. The GOP has been waging political war against this thing called Obamacare for seven years, except that Obamacare doesn’t really exist. That’s why they seem to be having so much trouble agreeing on how to get rid of it – they keep stepping on  popular provisions of the ACA that are lying around like rakes, waiting to hit them in the face. Mitch McConnell blames the Democrats, of course, but it’s really just about him and his party. This is a big fail, fucker. Suck on that.

Drop the T. Trump announced by Tweet that transgender people will no longer be allowed to serve in the United States military. This has thrown the service into a state of uncertainty and caused tremendous consternation among those who recognize our transgender comrades as human beings worthy of our love and respect. In other words, mission accomplished, Donald! Your alt-right supporters in the little mustache brigade are probably over the moon right now. They’ve probably already forgotten what you’ve said about Sessions. (Of course, they’re probably ADD.)

Manatee in a Suit. Gingrich was interviewed on NPR Morning Edition this week (7/26) and proceeded to throw the entire Justice Department under the bus in an attempt to make his new BFF Trump look a little better. Aside from hawking a book by Sidney Powell, the most hated man in America called the Justice Department “a extraordinarily left-wing institution” citing campaign contributions and decrying the Mueller probe as a “fishing expedition.” Wow, what a crackpot. The left wing conspiracy keeps expanding – last week it was Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski being tagged “leftists” by Limbaugh and others; this week it’s our entire federal law enforcement establishment.

luv u,

jp

Down to them.

Trump’s health care repeal and replace failed this week and of course he blamed it on everyone but himself. Then he turned around and told the New York Times that his horrible attorney general’s decision to recuse himself was “unfair to the president”. Wednesday night, Rachel Maddow was pondering how what Sessions did might be termed “unfair”, apparently forgetting that our president has the mind and emotions of a five year old, so everything that doesn’t go entirely his way seems to him to be totally unfair. That’s why we’re spending millions of dollars on a commission to hunt down evidence of non-existent massive voter impersonation by immigrants – at least non-existent in the world we all inhabit, if not in Trump’s tiny mind. So we’re doing it because his loss of the popular vote was “so unfair”. (Next the Pentagon will be tasked with hunting down his dream goblins.)

Not our only problem.It’s not just pure childishness, of course. When Trump picked the racist Sessions (attracted to the Trump campaign by the racist Steve Bannon) as attorney general, he thought he was hiring a lawyer to represent his own personal interests. That reflects not only his narcissism but also his profound ignorance with respect to the role of the AG.

I can only wish that Trump voters would get some vague idea of the dimensions of presidency and of how powerful a country this is. More than most jobs, the presidency can’t just be done by anybody, even if anybody can be elected president. That office is at the head of a massive global imperial enterprise that makes Trump’s company look like a lemonade stand. It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re president, and those mistakes can have enormous and lasting consequences. But the president does not just act for him or herself – s/he has a responsibility to all of us in everything s/he does. This president doesn’t get that. When he talks to Putin for 3.5 hours without having someone to capture what is discussed, he is acting like the government is just some cheesy corporation he acquired somewhere.

As I’ve said many times before, Trump is not the only problem we have. He is, in fact, just a symptom of a far broader problem – that of a Republican party that has gone off the deep, right end. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are in some ways more destructive than the dunce Trump, and far more cynical. Trump at least has the lame excuse of ignorance; congressional Republicans know what they want and who it hurts. They wrecked the economy the last time they held the presidency, openly obstructed even the flimsy, middle-of-the-road Obama agenda, stole a Supreme Court seat, and much more than that. If we’re to make any real progress in this country, we need to stop them as well.

Don’t be distracted. This mess is down to all of them. They all need to be held accountable at the ballot box.

luv u,

jp

The fire this time.

Another banner week for the just-born Trump administration, beset by a growing scandal around purported contacts with Russia, rocked by the forced resignation of anti-Muslim National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, scrambled by contradictory messaging from both surrogates and the President himself, and so on. Trump’s truly bizarre Thursday press conference saw him describe his White House as a “running like a fine-tuned machine.” Probably seems that way to someone as deluded as he appears to be. I’m not even including the very public situation room they convened at a restaurant table inside Trump’s Florida resort – a night that saw some crony posing for a photo with the dude who carries the nuclear football. Eek.

Donald J. DumpsterfireLate in last year’ campaign, when the T-man seemed to be burning out of control, I wrote a blog post titled “Burning Man” wherein I suggest that the candidate was like “a crazy-ass Frankenstein’s monster set on fire and spreading his conflagration to everything he touches. Better that he should do it during the campaign than in the oval office, am I right?” It hadn’t occurred to me at that time (a) that Trump would likely win under those circumstances and (b) that, if he did win, he would govern in much the same manner. Clearly both (a) and (b) have turned out to be the case. We’re going to see four years of this, people. Fasten your seat belts.

What can be done? Well, resist, of course. Join or start an Indivisible group in your area. Call or visit your Congress members and demand action out of them, not just to counter the Trump agenda, but to work against the Paul Ryan/Mitch McConnell program that is threatening every corner of American life, from health care to financial security to environmental sustainability and so on. We need to be active in our own communities, working for real change, but we also have to focus a good bit of our efforts on an electoral strategy that will give us some leverage.  Democrats stand little chance of winning back the Senate in 2018. The House is uphill as well, but it’s likely the only chance we have. That means flipping seats in places like upstate New York.

This will take work, and lots of it. Activism alone won’t hold back this tide of bad policy – we need some political gains at the state and federal level, particularly in advance of the next reapportionment fight in 2020. It’s a thin straw, but it’s the only one we have.

luv u,

jp

No justice.

Trump has named his nominee to the Supreme Court, with a reality show-like flourish, and we spent a couple of days hearing about how eminently qualified the honorable judge Gorsuch is, how pleasant a man he is, what a great colleague and … and … fuck all. Frankly, his qualifications are irrelevant. Much as the Republicans would like to pretend that time began Tuesday evening at 8:00pm, we all know what happened over the last year after the unexpected passing of Justice Scalia – basically, Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP invented a new obstructionist rule, saying in essence that President Obama had no right to name a replacement justice in the final year of his second term.

I agree with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkely on this. That seat on the Supreme Court was stolen by the Republicans on the then-long chance that they might win the 2016 election. Now they expect everyone to just forget all that and proceed with the swift confirmation of a man who is significantly to the right of the reactionary justice he would be replacing. I am not alone in saying, fuck that. Eight is a nice, round number – let’s just stay there, shall we?

Favorite photoThe notion that the Democrats need to allow this one to go through unchallenged is truly a case of playing by the last decade’s rules. Here’s the argument: Give Mitch McConnell his vote and he won’t blow up the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees. If you don’t, he’ll invoke the “nuclear option” and you won’t have the filibuster should another vacancy – this time perhaps left by a more liberal justice – comes up in Trump’s tenure. That is just magical thinking. If the filibuster can be shot down that easily, what’s to stop them from doing that next time around? The suggestion that they would somehow refrain out of collegiality or gratitude is laughable. At least filibustering Gorsuch would demonstrate to the majority of people that you’re willing to stand for something. Do nothing and not only will their man be seated on the Court, but next time you try to use the filibuster they’ll just toss it out. You gain nothing – and lost much – by being accommodating.

Now for what really irks me. Who knew that the filibuster was so easily disposed of? I had a suspicion when the Republicans threatened the “nuclear option” during the Bush years, but almost all the way through the years of Democratic Senate majority they wouldn’t touch it. You mean to tell me that in 2009-10, all the Dems had to do to get (1) the public option, (2) card check, (3) a bigger stimulus and more was to do a rule change in the Senate? What. the. fuck. That is a titanic political fail, and we are all the losers for it.

luv u,

jp