Can the GOP Save Its U.S. Senate Majority?

If one looks ate the legislation that has passed the U.S. Senate over the last year, the bills enacted are paltry in number.  Meanwhile, hundreds of bill passed by the House of Representatives have piled up on Mitch McConnell's desk and have been denied debate much less a vote.  Instead of doing its job, the Republican majority has done little and served basically as an enabler for Donald Trump's misrule with Republican senators most focused on licking Trump's feet and ducking any action that might enrage the knuckle dragging, racist, religiously extreme party base. A piece in The Hill by a Republican argues what needs to be done if the GOP is to avoid a increasingly likely loss of the majority in the Senate.  Don't expect any of these suggestions to be implemented by today's worthless Republican Senators.  Here are excerpts:

There is the old, rather worn, but still applicable adage of “when you are in a hole, stop digging." This could definitely be applied to the Republican Senate.

The Republicans in the Senate have been supplicants to President Trump.

They have marched behind him as he has marginalized himself more and more with his weak and divisive leadership on almost all issues of significance, from the coronavirus crisis to the more general goal of giving the nation a purposeful direction.

It is well past time for Senate Republicans to stand up for themselves. At least seven and maybe more Republican Senate members who are running for reelection may not be returning if the president, who seems to be oblivious to his stylistic and substantive disconnect with the majority of Americans, meets a defeat in November of Barry Goldwater proportions.

Trump has yet to give any meaningful reason why he should be reelected other then his dislike of the mainstream media (which is well-founded) and his own narcissistic self-importance.

Neither of these idiosyncrasies helps build an agenda that attracts more then a minority of electoral support.

There is no there, there with this president. There is only a “me” there.

Republican senators, like most elected officials, are a risk-averse group. They have chosen to be background to the Trump presidency. This is no longer a viable path for those up for reelection in competitive states. This, in turn, imperils the party’s hopes of retaining the Senate majority.

[I]t is difficult to see how Republican members can hold onto the Senate if they keep inextricably tying themselves to the misanthropic style of Trump.

Rather then being the “very stable genius” that the president has proclaimed himself, he appears more often to be an unguided political missile who might well lead those who follow him to a defeat of historic proportions.

It is late, maybe later than they think, but the Republican Senate, as the last rational group standing in the Republican Party now milling around Washington, should present its own largely positive argument for why it should continue to run the Senate.

It needs a name and set of goals that make sense.

Set out a course to protect us not only from this pandemic but from the next one that may come, by setting up a systematic, massive commitment to develop vaccines and prevention.

Relatedly, stop the trial bar from using this pandemic as a piggy bank with lawsuits that disable small businesses’ ability to recover.

Address the pressing issue of healthcare reform with policies that promote the marketplace of ideas for better care and individual choice.

Address immigration reform not as a threat, but rather a way to make our nation stronger — as immigrants always have — and more competitive in this global economy.

Return to a course that rebuilds our strategic alliances. NATO especially has been essential in protecting both our security and freedom across the world.

Senate Republican need to define themselves and their reasons for being there.

It is time to step out of the narrowing shadow of the president and to speak for all the people in this country who are wondering what has happened in Washington.

Why Is the GOP Fighting to Preserve Monuments to Traitors?

When goes to France, one does not see statutes of those who held positions in the Vichy government.  Across the former Soviet block one sees few monuments to communist leaders and even in Russia, there has been a resurgence of recognition of the tsarist era which in retrospect was no where near as repressive and murderous as the communist era ushered in by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Brutal regimes and the losers in the stage of history are not typically honored by statutes and monuments once the regimes have fallen.  Except in the American South where a battle now rages over the statutes to the Confederacy - most erected during the Jim Crow era, not the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.  On the side of honoring those who in effect were traitors to the United States is the Republican Party, the descendant party of the one that fought the Civil War to end slavery and defeat those honored by monuments and statutes such as those on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, a truly beautiful street and grand residential area. An editorial in the New York Times asks the question of why.  My own short hand answer is that today's GOP is the party of white supremacy lead by the racist-in-chief, Donald Trump.  Here editorial highlights:

Confederate statues are being pulled down across the South — from Birmingham, Ala., to Decatur, Ga., to Richmond, Va., the Confederacy’s former capital. The U.S. Navy and the Marines have banned public displays of the Confederate battle flag — as has NASCAR.

Now, Congress is taking its own halting steps forward. On Thursday, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced that portraits of four former House speakers who also served the Confederacy would be removed from display in the Capitol in observance of the Juneteenth holiday.

The portraits are of Robert M.T. Hunter of Virginia, who was speaker from 1839 to 1841 before serving in various high positions in the Confederacy, including secretary of state; Howell Cobb of Georgia, who was speaker from 1849 to 1851 and later served as a Confederate Army officer; James L. Orr of South Carolina, speaker from 1857 to 1859, who went on to serve in the Confederate Army and in the Confederate Senate; and Charles F. Crisp of Georgia, the House speaker from 1891 to 1895, who served in the Confederate Army as a young man.

“As I have said before, the halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy,” Ms. Pelosi wrote to the clerk of the House, requesting the removal. “There is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.”

Over in the Senate, Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, tried to nudge his chamber forward as well. He and the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, moved Thursday to pass a bill by unanimous consent that would remove 11 monuments to Confederates from the National Statuary Hall Collection displayed in the Capitol.

Not all of Mr. Booker’s colleagues agreed. Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, blocked the move. . . . The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, was more outspoken in his opposition. On Tuesday, he derided brewing efforts to “airbrush the Capitol and scrub out everybody from years ago who had any connection to slavery” as “nonsense” and “a bridge too far.” He even felt moved to list for reporters some of the early presidents who owned slaves.

None of those presidents, it should be noted, went to war against the United States to defend slavery. Nor are all the 11 statues of peripheral figures who had just “any connection” to the war for chattel slavery. The statues include one of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America; Alexander Hamilton Stephens, the vice president; and its most famous general, Robert E. Lee. There are other statues of men less central to the rebel cause. But given that states can select any person of note from their state, surely there are many other men or women who don’t have the Confederacy on their résumés.

Is this really the hill that the Party of Lincoln wants to fight on in 2020? What an ignoble, lost cause.

Once again, America is showing itself to be exceptional, but not in a good way.

Trump and His Congressional Enablers Must be Removed

Reportedly Donald Trump wants to use a 213 year old law to use military troops against American citizens protesting the continue problem of police officers murdering black males. Please understand, that I in no way condone rioters and looters who in my view undermine the cause that protesters seek to have addressed, But using the American military against citizens is like something out of Putin's Russia or Castro's Cuba.  Alarm bells should be sounding loudly and citizens who support civil liberties and the U.S. Constitution should be screaming for Trump's removal from office by any means necessary.  Trump - faced with growing public disapproval and a horrendously failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic is desperate and this threat could well be the sign that he is out to overthrow the government viewing himself as a dictator.  Whether or not the military leadership and rank and file troops would fire on civilians is one to which we can only hope the answer is "No."  A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at Trump's willingness to use military force against civilians:  Here are column highlights:

President Trump somehow imagined it was a good idea to unleash law enforcement on peaceful demonstrators before the 7 p.m. curfew Monday night as he stepped into the Rose Garden to give a knockoff version of Richard M. Nixon’s “law and order” message.

[Trump] The president who called NFL protesters peacefully taking a knee “sons of bitches,” lied when he declared that he is a friend of peaceful demonstrators. The police firing rubber bullets and launching tear gas at protesters in Lafayette Square in front of the White House said otherwise. Then, as if the scene was not evidence enough of his desire to raise the level of violence, he pledged to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil, against U.S. civilians, if governors did not heed his incendiary advice to fill the streets with National Guard troops

It was later revealed that Trump instigated the assault on protesters specifically to make a gesture of walking to St. John’s church.

Nothing could be more representative of the dangerous narcissism of a president in over his head, resorting to threats of violence against a country he ostensibly is supposed to lead. The deliberate instigation of violence for his own photo op tells Americans how deeply twisted and deformed his character is.

Moreover, any attempt to use the military against civilians in this fashion would almost certainly be illegal and unconstitutional. Even under the Insurrection Act, federal troops would have to be invited into the states to suppress an actual rebellion. For Trump, the threat of force, however unrealistic, is his go-to move when his manliness is called into question — as it was when he fled to the bunker at the White House over the weekend.

If anyone in America had any doubt as to his intentions — to foment violence, to increase racial animosity, to glorify himself at the expense of the national good — Monday’s events should silence them. Democrats and any Republicans with a modicum of decency should denounce the stunt, call for a full review of the incident and conduct congressional oversight. We hope a strong bipartisan assembly of elected officials joins the protesters at the White House, and that one or more civil rights groups will file suit for use of excessive force and deprivation of the peaceful protesters’ rights of assembly and free speech. You are either for Trump or for democracy at this point.

It does not take much imagination to conclude Trump is attempting to escalate violence around the country so he can deploy the military. This is the conduct of a tin-pot dictator — someone resorting to violent suppression of our most closely cherished rights.

More than ever, we should all recognize that, as former vice president Joe Biden put it, this is an election about the soul of our country and the survival of peaceful self-governance.

Trump's malfeasance and threat to constitutional government as noted in the previous column has a conservative stalwart like George Will calling for his removal in another column in the Washington Post.  Here are excerpts:

This unraveling presidency began with the Crybaby-in-Chief banging his spoon on his highchair tray to protest a photograph — a photograph — showing that his inauguration crowd the day before had been smaller than the one four years previous. Since then, this weak person’s idea of a strong person, this chest-pounding advertisement of his own gnawing insecurities, this low-rent Lear raging on his Twitter-heath has proven that the phrase malignant buffoon is not an oxymoron.

Presidents, exploiting modern communications technologies and abetted today by journalists preening as the “resistance” — like members of the French Resistance 1940-1944, minus the bravery — can set the tone of American society, which is regrettably soft wax on which presidents leave their marks. [Trump's] The president’s provocations — his coarsening of public discourse that lowers the threshold for acting out by people as mentally crippled as he — do not excuse the violent few. They must be punished. He must be removed.

Social causation is difficult to demonstrate, particularly between one person’s words and other persons’ deeds. However: The person voters hired in 2016 to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” stood on July 28, 2017, in front of uniformed police and urged them “please don’t be too nice” when handling suspected offenders. His hope was fulfilled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Minneapolis pavement.

The nation’s downward spiral into acrimony and sporadic anarchy has had many causes much larger than the small man who is the great exacerbator of them. Most of the causes predate his presidency, and most will survive its January terminus. The measures necessary for restoration of national equilibrium are many and will be protracted far beyond his removal. One such measure must be the removal of those in Congress who, unlike the sycophantic mediocrities who cosset him in the White House, will not disappear “magically,” as Eric Trump said the coronavirus would. Voters must dispatch his congressional enablers, especially the senators who still gambol around his ankles with a canine hunger for petting.

In life’s unforgiving arithmetic, we are the sum of our choices. Congressional Republicans have made theirs for more than 1,200 days. We cannot know all the measures necessary to restore the nation’s domestic health and international standing, but we know the first step: Senate Republicans must be routed, as condign punishment for their Vichyite collaboration, leaving the Republican remnant to wonder: Was it sensible to sacrifice dignity, such as it ever was, and to shed principles, if convictions so easily jettisoned could be dignified as principles, for . . . what?

In 2016, the Republican Party gave its principal nomination to a vulgarian and then toiled to elect him. And to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving abjectness has enabled his institutional vandalism, who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies, , , , ,
 Those who think our unhinged president’s recent mania about a murder two decades ago that never happened represents his moral nadir have missed the lesson of his life: There is no such thing as rock bottom. So, assume that the worst is yet to come. Which implicates national security: Abroad, anti-Americanism sleeps lightly when it sleeps at all, and it is wide-awake as decent people judge our nation’s health by the character of those to whom power is entrusted. Watching, too, are indecent people in Beijing and Moscow.

An

With Relief Measures Set to Phase Out, Some Face Economic Ruin

Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has indicated that he has little interest in additional economic relief bills being passed by Congress, preferring instead to focus on the appointment of extreme right wing judges, and Donald Trump's main obsession - when not seeking to punish those who call out his lies - is "reopening" the economy with seemingly no thoughts about the reality that an economic comeback is likely to be a long process.  Faced with GOP "let them eat cake" mentality (something wrongfully attributed to Marie Antoinette, but accurate with respect Congressional Republicans), many of the 40 million Americans who have lost their jobs since March are likely to face economic hardship, if not ruin.  Do Trump and McConnell care about them?  Of course not!  A piece in the New York Times looks at the frightening prospect facing far too many Americans.  Here are excerpts:

About 1 in 4 American workers have filed for unemployment since March.

For millions of Americans left out of work by the pandemic, government assistance has been a lifeline preventing a plunge into poverty, hunger and financial ruin.

This summer, that lifeline could snap, reports Ben Casselman.

The $1,200 checks sent to most households are long gone, at least for those who needed them most, with little imminent prospect for a second round. The lending program that helped millions of small businesses keep workers on the payroll will wind down if Congress does not extend it. Eviction moratoriums that kept people in their homes are expiring in many cities.

And the $600 per week in extra unemployment benefits that have allowed tens of millions of laid-off workers to pay rent and buy groceries will expire at the end of July.

More than 40 million people have filed for benefits since the crisis began, and some 30 million are receiving them.

The multitrillion-dollar patchwork of federal and state programs hasn’t kept bills from piling up or prevented long lines at food banks, but it has mitigated the damage. Now the expiration of those programs represents a cliff they are hurtling toward, for individuals and for the economy.

“The CARES Act was massive, but it was a very short-term offset to what is likely to be a long-term problem,” said Aneta Markowska, the chief financial economist for the investment bank Jefferies, referring to the legislative centerpiece of the federal rescue. “This economy is clearly going to need more support.”

Even the possibility that the programs will be allowed to expire could have economic consequences, Ms. Markowska said, as consumers and businesses brace for the loss of federal assistance.

President Trump and other Republicans have played down the need for more spending, saying the solution is for states to reopen businesses and allow companies to bring people back to work. So despite pleas from economists across the political spectrum — including Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman — any federal action is likely to be limited.

The House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to give businesses more time to use money borrowed under the Paycheck Protection Program, which offers forgivable loans to small businesses that retain or rehire their workers. The bill’s fate in the Senate is uncertain, but a deal seems likely to be reached.

Will Trump Help Democrats Win the Senate?

If America is to end its national nightmare two things need to happen in November: (i) Trump is defeated, and (ii) the U.S. Senate must flip to Democrat control, removing the toxic influence of Mitch McConnell, a man who along with Trump has done much to destroy the nation's reputation and who has waged a relentless war against working and middle class Americans (I view Trump as mentally ill, whereas McConnell is just plain evil).  As of now, polls are encouraging in terms of Trump's weakness and the improved chances of a Democrat controlled Senate come January, 2021. Better yet, Trump's unpopularity appears to be harming GOP Senators who have prostituted themselves to his cult of personality and the ugliest elements of the GOP base.  A piece in Vanity Fair looks at the current situation.  Here are highlights:

Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a 57-page memo that appeared to suggest candidates distance themselves, at least a little, from Donald Trump. “Don’t defend Trump,” the memo read. “Attack China.” Faced with outrage from the president’s team, the NRSC claimed it was all a big misunderstanding—the coronavirus talking point was poorly worded, they said, and there was actually “no daylight between the NRSC and President Trump.” Still, the memo seemed to reflect Republican fears that the president’s catastrophic mishandling of the COVID crisis could not only cost them the White House, but the Senate, as well.

Recent polling suggests those fears are warranted. Democrats need to nab five of eight Republican-held seats in competitive races to gain control of the upper chamber; they hold leads in five of the contests and trail by just a point in another. High-profile Republicans are among those who find themselves in jeopardy; Thom Tillis, a Trump ally, is trailing Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham by nine points in North Carolina, according to a poll released Tuesday, and Maine’s Susan Collins is behind Sara Gideon 2.5 points in an average of polls.

[T]he spate of positive numbers for Democrats in swing races has put the Senate, under Republican control since 2015, in play. “I think it’s become very competitive,” Kyle Kondick, managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the Hill last month.

As Axios reported Wednesday, Democrats have shown momentum in key Senate races as the president’s path to reelection grows increasingly perilous. On Tuesday, polls showed Montana Governor Steve Bullock, who launched his Senate campaign after exiting the 2020 Democratic primary, leading incumbent Steve Daines by seven points in the state Trump carried by more than 20 in 2016, and Cunningham leading Tillis by nine.

In Arizona, Mark Kelly leads Republican Martha McSally by an average of eight points; in Kansas, Barbara Bollier leads possible Republican nominee Kris Kobach, a staunch ally of the president, by two; and in Maine, Gideon narrowly leads Collins.

Even before the coronavirus crisis hit, Trump was a historically unpopular president who made not only himself, but his party vulnerable to defeat—thanks to his corruption, incompetence, and despicable behavior. But his mishandling of the pandemic has accentuated all those shortcomings, perhaps even eroding some support within his previously rock-solid base. “We are starting to see more evidence that suburban voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling the coronavirus pandemic,”

[W]hatever political protection Trump’s cult of personality affords him, personally, may not extend to his allies in down-ballot races.

I hope the anti-GOP trend continues and, better yet, intensifies.

Is McConnell Trying to Lose the GOP Senate Majority

Mitch "the Grim Reaper" McConnell - huge tax cuts to the
wealthy, but no concern for working Americans.

More than 26 million Americans have lost their jobs, America's GDP dropped 4.8% in the first calendar quarter, and consumer and business spending has dropped significantly, and states and localities are teetering financially as the coronavirus pandemic continues.  Meanwhile, Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican, is sounding the alarm that Georgia is in play and could go blue.  Yet what is Mitch "the Grim Reaper" McConnell's top priority? Having the Senate back in session to work on judicial nominees, no doubt to appoint more far right, anti-LGBT and anti-abortion ideologues to the federal bench. Considering more spending and aid to states and localities - and by extension, thousands and thousands of public employees - is seemingly nowhere on McConnell's radar. A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at McConnell's bizarre priorities that seem to want states to implement draconian employee layoffs further driving up the ranks of the unemployed while dangerously cutting necessary public services.  Here are column highlights:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) first suggested that instead of receiving any more federal funding, state and local governments should go bankrupt — which would entail layoffs and pay cuts for firefighters, police, public health officials and other critical personnel. Now comes word that when the Senate returns to the Capitol . . . . it will focus “not on the coronavirus but instead on judicial nominations that have long been a priority for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell," NBC News reports.

Let’s review where things stand. The economy shrank by 4.8 percent in the first quarter, which includes only a couple of weeks of coronavirus-related disruption. The second quarter’s GDP in all likelihood will look like something from the Great Depression (as much as a 30 percent drop, according to some experts).

The Post also reports, “Spending by Americans tumbled 7.6 percent, and business investment shrank 8.6 percent, according to the Commerce Department report, which gives the first comprehensive look at how painful the economic fallout from the pandemic has been.” We are buying groceries, but not much of anything else. McConnell and Republicans seem to have learned nothing from economic history: It took three years to climb out of the Great Recession and more than a decade to recover from the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economists say the government was too slow to act and too stingy with aid in the past, mistakes that should not be repeated now.

So McConnell’s response to all this is to tell states to go bankrupt and confirm judges just as matters are about to get much worse for state and local employees. (The Post reports: “Some local governments have already started laying off or furloughing thousands of their workers, and the numbers are likely to grow markedly in the absence of federal aid. . . . Between 300,000 and 1 million public-sector workers could soon be out of a job or sent home without pay.”) The only jobs McConnell seems anxious to fill are lifetime federal judges.

McConnell’s indifference to the burgeoning train wreck in state and local government, we see in poll after poll, is out of sync with voters’ desire for more government involvement and federal aid. The latest Morning Consult poll shows that "74 percent of registered voters, including 84 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Republicans, agreed that the federal government should be responsible for providing financial support to states during the coronavirus pandemic.” Note, that’s 65 percent of Republicans.

It’s not clear this is even popular in Kentucky, where McConnell is standing for reelection. The University of Kentucky is already laying off and furloughing employees, and the state assembly is cutting libraries and forgoing raises for public K-12 teachers. In Louisville . . . . If no solution is worked out by October 1, the mayor said they will have to consider [laying] off about 1,000 city employees which equals about 20% of all city workers.”

His Democratic opponent, Amy McGrath, is pummeling McConnell for his willingness to bail out large corporations but not his state’s teachers, firefighters, health-care workers, etc. . . . One wonders how Republican incumbents already facing tough reelection races (e.g. Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona) are going to explain this to laid-off first responders, teachers, nurses at city hospitals, librarians and others. Even if McConnell tried, it would be hard to come up with a position and set of priorities more likely to enrage his members’ constituents.

McConnell’s Rejection of Aid for States Risks Causing a Depression

McConnell: worse person in Washington?

There are few individuals in Washington, D.C., more evil than Mitch McConnell - Trump is perhaps the only one worse.  McConnell had no problem giving a $1.5 trillion tax break to the wealthy and large corporations, most of which used the funds to buy back stock and further enrich their senior officers. Likewise, McConnell and his wife have used their positions to secure all kinds of sweetheart deals and enrich themselves.  Now, with the nation in the grip of a pandemic, McConnell says he would prefer states go bankrupt - cutting all kinds of essential services upon which citizens depend - rather than provide federal aid to states.   When it comes to helping states and average Americans, McConnell's response is "f*ck you" and/or "go die." The man is despicable and has done extreme damage to the nation.  If anyone needs to be stricken by the virus, I'd nominate McConnell.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at McConnell's reckless insanity.  Here are excerpts:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would rather see states declare bankruptcy than give them federal aid to deal with the economic collapse triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s a recipe for turning a potentially short recession into a prolonged depression, according to officials and analysts.

The question of whether Congress and the White House should provide relief funding to state and local governments — as the feds have done already for private business — is about to reach a showdown in Washington.

The stakes are high in our region, where state and local officials say that without federal action they will have to make even deeper cuts than feared in core services such as education, housing and health programs (apart from those required to fight the virus).
Governors, mayors and county leaders of both parties are clamoring for help in the next federal rescue package after McConnell and President Trump blocked such assistance in the $484 billion bill approved last week.

Maryland says the shutdown could cost it as much as $2.8 billion in lost tax revenue in just four months — from March through June.

“I would describe this as worse than the 2008-2009 recession,” Franchot said. “That was a huge fiscal and monetary catastrophe, but we didn’t see 340,000 Marylanders file for unemployment in three weeks.”

In an earlier relief package passed last month, Congress approved $150 billion for state and local governments — but with an important condition. It said the money could be spent only to cover new costs of fighting the virus, and not to replace revenue lost because of the economic slump. State and local leaders are calling for the next bill to eliminate that restriction.

“We’re not going to get out of this pandemic and this budget mess unless the people on the ground instead of people in Washington, D.C., are given flexibility to use the money as they know how to help the economy recover,” Fairfax County Board Chairman Jeff C. McKay (D-At Large) said.

Fairfax is projected to lose at least $165 million over 12 months because of plunging sales tax receipts and other effects of the shutdown. It already has dropped plans to increase spending on affordable housing, early-childhood education and police body cameras.

They [Republicans] said they feared that states and localities would move more slowly to reopen their economies if they received federal assistance. State and local leaders retorted that they will open their economies as soon as public health authorities say it’s safe to do so.

The other argument against federal aid, voiced by McConnell, is that it would bail out states that he said have mismanaged their finances in the past, such as by incurring large pension obligations for teachers and other public employees. In a radio interview Wednesday, McConnell suggested instead that states declare bankruptcy.

The comment drew widespread backlash.

“This is grossly irresponsible with a naive sense of what state and local governments do,” tweeted Amy Liu, director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. “Without emergency relief as their revenues crater, state and local governments will not be able to run key programs like unemployment insurance, social services, housing assistance and small business outreach needed to protect people and businesses in this crisis.

“If you want to send the country into an extended depression, sending state and local governments into bankruptcy is a great way to do it,” said a local government budget expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Our region’s state and local governments are bracing for severe spending cuts, with the burden expected to fall heavily on two areas that make up a large part of their budgets — education and health care.

Virginia has already suspended plans to increase spending on K-12 education by $540 million over two years, higher education by $356 million and Medicaid by $207 million.

The District is projected to lose $1.5 billion in revenue over the next 17 months. Barring substantial federal aid or tax increases, cuts are expected to fall heavily on affordable housing, education and services that help low-income residents, according to Tazra Mitchell, policy director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.

McConnell’s attacks on states’ fiscal management drew sharp rebukes from area officials. They noted that Virginia, Maryland and the District also have Triple-A bond ratings. Additionally, states, unlike Congress, are required to balance their budgets.

McKay noted: “Fairfax has a Triple-A bond rating and a balanced budget. Compare that to Mitch McConnell’s record on deficits. It’s laughable.”

GOP Congressman: Mitch McConnell is "the Marie Antoinette of the Senate"

After Donald Trump, the man who has done more damage to America and exhibited more disregard of the U.S. Constitution is the ever despicable (and self-enriching) Mitch McConnell.  Now, with states struggling financially with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, McConnell has said that he would prefer that states go bankrupt rather than have the federal government provide financial assistance.  This, from the man who had no qualms giving away $1,5 trillion to the extremely wealthy and large corporations, exploding the federal deficit in the process.  Combined with McConnell's protection of Trump and putting the GOP above the country, McConnell deserves the nickname "Moscow Mitch."  He needs to be voted out of office and he and his wife investigated.  A piece in Salon looks at even a Republican calling McConnell out. A piece in Salon looks at McConnell's Marie Antoinette comparison (which probably is slanderous toward Marie Antoinette).  Here are excerpts:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., caught fire from both parties after telling the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday that he would rather see states declare bankruptcy — which they cannot do — than wait for expanded federal aid that would demand further deficit spending.

"We all have governors regardless of party who would love to have free money," McConnell said. "I think this whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments need to be thoroughly evaluated."

Hours later, Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., publicly rebuked McConnell, calling his Republican colleague's remarks "indefensible."

"To say that it is 'free money' to provide funds for cops, firefighters and healthcare workers makes McConnell the Marie Antoinette of the Senate," King tweeted.

McConnell — who nicknamed himself the "Grim Reaper" — made the remarks the day after the Senate passed a relief bill that excluded the hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid requested by a bipartisan coalition of governors.

"These continuing losses will force states and territories not only to make drastic cuts to the programs we depend on to provide economic security, educational opportunities, and public safety, but the national economic recovery will be dramatically hampered," Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), chairman of the National Governors Association, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), vice-chair, wrote in a joint letter to Congress last week.

Though McConnell said he prefers the bankruptcy route, President Donald Trump has said he wants to add a relief package for state and local governments in the next round of emergency funding.

McConnell's office published a press release to promote the interview, tossing off the requested funds as "blue-state bailouts," . . . . Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put McConnell's colleagues on the spot Thursday morning, tweeting: "Republican Senators: Raise your hand if you think your state should go bankrupt."

King and Schumer both veterans of Congress  — King has represented parts of Long Island since 1993 — have teamed up against McConnell before. In the wake of last summer's mass shooting at a San Antonio Wal-Mart, the pair called on McConnell to call an emergency session to vote on a background check bill that passed in the lower chamber.

McConnell's Senate office could not be immediately reached for comment. His campaign redirected Salon's request to his Senate office.

Jobless Claims May Hit 5 Million This Week

Mitch McConnell has told Nancy Pelosi to forget about drafting a second stimulus bill demonstrating either how out of touch he is with reality or how little he cares about average Americans finding themselves suddenly unemployed (either one you pick is an indictment) with state unemployment offices unable to keep up with new claims being filed. Today, the past weeks new unemployment number swill be released and it looks like it will be horrific. One can hope it will force McConnell to get his head out of his ass, but don't hold your breath.  This is a man who thinks giving huge tax breaks to the very wealthy is fine, but who begrudges increasing meager unemployment payments.  A piece in the New York Times looks at projections of what today's numbers may look like.  Here are excerpts:

The Department of Labor reported last week that more than three million people filed for unemployment from March 15 to March 21, the largest single-week increase in American history.

But this Thursday’s number, which reflects claims filed last week, could rise to 5.6 million, according to an analysis of Google search data by the economists Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of Yale and Aaron Sojourner of the University of Minnesota.

Morgan Stanley estimates that claims will rise to 4.5 million in tomorrow’s report; Goldman Sachs’s estimate is 5.5 million.

If these forecasts are accurate, there will be as many claims in two weeks as in the first six months of the Great Recession.

A few weeks ago, state agencies were releasing their own counts of jobless claims ahead of the federal government, but as those numbers reached record levels, the Trump administration asked them to withhold their counts before the official national release. (Some states, like Pennsylvania, are ignoring that request.) State resources have been severely strained with astronomical levels of interest from recently laid-off workers, leading to long wait times, nonworking websites and jammed phone lines. This suggests the true numbers are higher than what the Department of Labor will report Thursday. Mr. Goldsmith-Pinkham and Mr. Sojourner expect the previous numbers to be revised upward with the release of the new numbers Thursday. In normal times and even during typical recessions, so many people are being hired and fired daily that it’s hard to predict how many people will end up filing for unemployment.

The difference this time is that there is very little hiring to replace the losses, and the researchers thought their forecasts could be more accurate. So far, Mr. Goldsmith-Pinkham and Mr. Sojourner have found the relationship between searches and claims to be relatively stable.

Republicans Were Warned About Coronavirus Yet Failed to Act

Donald Trump is trying mightily to (i) make the public forget his previous lies about the coronavirus and his regime's failure to act when it should have, and (ii) change the subject such as co-opting today's press conference with a drug trafficking announcement.  But, it is important to remember that Trump was aided and abetted in his failure to properly respond by Republicans, especially those in the U.S. Senate who ignored the pandemic threat and did what they always do: kiss Trump's ass and attack Democrats sounding the alarm. Among the worse offenders is Mitch McConnell who is in a race with Trump for the title of who most damaged constitutional government. A column in the Washington Post looks at McConnell's recent disingenuous remarks and his own malfeasance in failing to protect the nation while preoccupied protecting Trump (and lining his own and his wife's pockets),  Here are column excerpts:

Mitch McConnell got an early jump on April Fools’ Day this year, blaming Democrats for the Trump administration’s failure to prepare for the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“It came up while we were, you know, tied down in the impeachment trial,” the Senate majority leader said Tuesday. “And I think it diverted the attention of the government.”

In addition to implicitly acknowledging that President Trump wasn’t paying attention to the growing danger, it was a curious entry into the blame game for the Kentucky Republican, who recently said this isn’t “a time for partisan bickering.”

If anybody was diverted, it was McConnell, who, along with most of his GOP colleagues, again put lockstep defense of the president ahead of the national interest. During the three weeks of the impeachment trial, public health experts gave stark warnings about the growing biological threat. In that same time, several Senate Democrats (and a few Republicans) urged a more robust mobilization.

You know who said nothing? McConnell. . . . the first time he spoke about the coronavirus in public was Feb. 25, nearly three weeks after the impeachment trial ended, when he was asked at a news conference whether administration officials are “on the same page when it comes to combating coronavirus.”

In his first substantive remarks on the virus, two days later, he praised the Trump administration’s response to the virus and condemned Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s “partisan political attacks,” “posturing” and “performative outrage” because Schumer called Trump’s coronavirus funding request inadequate.

After the impeachment trial ended and as the coronavirus menace grew, McConnell had the Senate take up two campaign-year abortion bills that had no chance of passage.

It was an echo of the impeachment trial itself. During impeachment, public servants and Democrats warned that Trump was putting his political interests (an announced probe of his opponent) over national security (by withholding military aid to an ally in distress) — and Republicans stood by him. Likewise, as the virus spread, experts and many Democrats pleaded for more urgency. But Trump put his political interests (stock market gains) ahead of public health (by playing down the virus danger). And Republicans averted their gaze.

In the middle of the impeachment trial, on Jan. 26, Schumer demanded that the administration declare a public health emergency so that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could access more funds. . . . Senate Democrats point to 32 other warnings, requests and statements they made seeking action against the virus — all while the Senate impeachment trial was underway.

More general warnings long pre-dated impeachment and came from a few Republicans, too. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) warned in 2017 about Trump’s attempts to cut funding for pandemic preparedness. In 2018, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) repeatedly warned the White House that we are “unprepared for pandemic outbreaks.”

Senate Republicans knew the coronavirus danger. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.), while saying publicly that we were “better prepared than ever,” seems to have been spooked enough about the coming pandemic to sell off stock worth as much as $1.7 million in mid-February and is now under Justice Department investigation. Around the same time, Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, complained that administration officials refused to participate in a hearing where he received alarming forecasts about the virus.

And so a bad situation turned into a catastrophe because of a familiar pathology: a president who repeatedly puts self-interest above the national interest — and political allies in Congress who let him.

Will Voters Save America's Democracy?

We regularly hear it said that a coming election is the most important one ever.  In the case of the 2020 presidential election, this is in fact a true statement because, if Trump, is re-elected, the survival of American democracy itself is perhaps at issue. We find ourselves at the moment with a U.S. Senate that seems heel bent on making the same mistakes made by their Roman counterparts many centuries ago.  Then, the result was a dictatorship and imperial rule.  Now, Trump sees himself as a monarch and is out to destroy all of the institutions created by the Founding Fathers to prevent the rise of monarchical rule. A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at both the savaging of government institutions under Trump with a complicit Republican Senate majority and the stakes facing the nation if Trump is not defeated. We clearly live in frightening times.  Here are column excerpts:

Two thousand and twenty will be a year in which U.S. institutions begin to recover from a nasty infection, or to reveal lasting disabilities. The immediate, televised test will come to a disturbingly weakened U.S. Senate.

This is the one institution that Americans decided the founders had gotten all wrong. Senators were initially selected by state legislatures as a counterbalance to the direct democracy of the House of Representatives. That changed with the ratification of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913. But the Senate’s immunity from public passions was partially maintained by six-year terms and by Senate rules allowing filibusters and requiring supermajorities to move forward at key moments. This gave individual senators extraordinary power to shape corporate outcomes and encouraged a healthy institutional arrogance.

The old Senate is nearly dead — mortally wounded by majority leaders of both parties who have prioritized efficiency over tradition. The current leader, Mitch McConnell, seems intent on delivering the coup de grace by publicly admitting to coordination with the White House in the impeachment process. This is the effective subordination of the Senate to the president, leaving a large hole where the framers intended an immovable object.

We are witnessing the triumph of partisanship over deliberation and senatorial self-respect. In the impeachment process, facts and democratic values apparently mean nothing. The majority leader has announced a verdict before the trial. . . . . obvious hypocrisy is viewed with pride rather than shame. And a vital constitutional process is revealed as a political pretense.

Most Republican senators have refused to even engage the damning testimony of people such as National Security Council aide Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, vice-presidential aide Jennifer Williams, ousted Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, former National Security Council aide Fiona Hill and former acting ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. These men and women risked their careers — and public slander by the president — to call out a serious abuse of presidential power. So far, virtually no Republican senators are willing to assume any risk to endorse their bravery.
The servility of Republican senators would leave both the Senate and the executive branch damaged and call into question Republican fitness to govern.

Other institutions are also about to be tested in 2020. Because the president views anyone he can hire and fire as his personal valet, the integrity of federal law enforcement is also under severe stress. President Trump has already secured the appointment of an attorney general willing to polish his shoes, wash his laundry and obscure his scandals. . . . . To a long list of professional milestones, Barr is adding toady, minion and yes man.

A similar type of institutional assault is taking place in the U.S. military. In his cartoonish conception of strength, the commander in chief clearly views members of the armed forces as “killing machines” who should act without conscience. And so he [Trump] has upended military discipline to absolve members of the military accused or convicted of war crimes.

In all these cases, a president of crude, cunning and low character is attempting to leave his imprint on important democratic institutions. During 2020, many will resist that influence — not as a “deep state” but as defenders of public integrity. They deserve our support. But only the presidential electorate can prevent four more years of institutional vandalism.

Why Impeachment is Necessary

One of the books I am reading - I usually read two to three books in rotation at a time- is titled "Mortal Republic" and looks at the slide of the Roman Republic to an authoritarian, dictatorial rule under emperors.   Some of the parallels between the Roman Republic's slide to tyranny and what we see happening in America in the age of Trump are chilling. Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans bear a disturbing similarity to Roman senators who valued their own office and remaining in power over their country and the public that they were supposed to represent and serve. At several points the Roman senators of old could have stopped the destruction of the Republic had they exhibited courage and pushed aside craven short term self-interest. Now, Senate Republicans are on the cusp of finding themselves at a similar crossroads where they can either side with upholding the American Republic or they can act as their Roman predecessors did and thereby accelerate the demise of democracy and the U.S. Constitution. Those who think I over dramatize where America finds itself either do not know history and/or are motivated by tribalism, hate and greed. A column in the New York Times looks at why impeaching Trump is imperative.  Here are highlights:

“I think the American people are going to have a chance to decide this at the ballot box in November 2020,” Beto O’Rourke said in March, neatly expressing prevailing Democratic opinion on the question of impeaching President Trump, “and perhaps that’s the best way for us to resolve these outstanding questions.”

This is no longer a tenable position. [Trump's] The president’s bungled bid to coerce Ukraine’s leader into helping the Trump 2020 re-election campaign smear a rival struck “decide it at the ballot box” off the menu of reasonable opinion forever. Mr. Trump’s brazen attempt to cheat his way into a second term stands so scandalously exposed that there can be no assurance of a fair election if he’s allowed to stay in office. Resolving the question of [Trump's] the president’s fitness at the ballot box isn’t really an option, much less the best option, when the question boils down to whether the ballot box will be stuffed.

Impeachment is therefore imperative, not only to protect the integrity of next year’s elections but to secure America’s continued democratic existence. If the House does its job, it will fall to Senate Republicans to reveal, in their decision to convict (or not), their preferred flavor of republic: constitutional or banana.

Mike Murphy, a Republican election consultant, recently remarked that “one Republican senator told me if it was a secret vote, 30 Republican senators would vote to impeach Trump.” Everyone understands that Mr. Trump is wildly popular with conservative voters, and that Senate Republicans would rather not invite primary challengers by alienating them. But when the legitimacy and preservation of our democracy are at stake, striving to keep a Senate seat safe through craven betrayal of the American people could come at a catastrophic price to the country.

It is now impossible to deny that Mr. Trump pressed Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on Joe Biden while holding up congressionally appropriated military assistance intended to help Ukraine stave off Russian aggression. Mr. Trump loudly admitted it, and the summary of his July phone conversation with Mr. Zelensky and the whistle-blower report cast it in the worst possible light. If Mr. Trump’s willing to cop to this, all while promoting an Infowars-level conspiracy theory to justify it, the American public can reasonably suspect that he’s abusing the powers of his office in other ways to fix the election in his favor.

[Trump] knows he’s beyond the reach of criminal prosecution only so long as he commands the awesome powers of the executive branch.

The content of the “favors” Mr. Trump asked of the Ukrainian president underscore his feral resolve to barricade himself inside the Oval Office for at least five more years. His purpose in pressuring Mr. Zelensky to inquire into the Ukrainian whereabouts of an imaginary server and to beat the bushes for evidence of corruption involving Mr. Biden’s family was to drum up “evidence” that Russian election interference and his role in abetting it was nothing but a frame job fabricated by Ukrainians, in cahoots with the Democratic Party, to throw the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton.

This is the lunacy behind Mr. Trump’s willingness to casually endanger Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia. Worse, by ordering the attorney general, the secretary of state and his personal fixer to lend counterfeit substance to this ridiculous effort, he has untethered American diplomacy and law enforcement from reality.

If the House goes through with impeachment but the Senate acquits, Mr. Trump’s lawlessness will have been lavishly rewarded. He will take it as a signal that absolutely anything goes — especially given the Senate’s failure to act in any meaningful way on election security. Should he win, a sizable majority of the public will see it as an electoral coup and deny the validity of his claim to power.

If Senate Republicans hold their majority through an election that stinks of corruption, they’ll be dogged by the same crisis of legitimacy. If they nevertheless go on to use their dubious authority to continue stacking the courts and shielding the president from accountability, Americans won’t be wrong to conclude that our democracy has crumbled and that the United States has devolved into one of the world’s many soft-authoritarian kleptocracies claiming popular legitimacy from behind a cheap veneer of rigged elections. It can definitely happen here.

Senate Republicans who would vote in secret to remove Mr. Trump need to finally come to the defense of their country and do it in public. . . . . senators who choose to ignore the duties of their office in order to protect Mr. Trump will communicate with ringing clarity that they don’t care about having a fair election; that they don’t care whether the American people have really granted them the authority to govern; and that they think their own voters don’t care about any of this, either.

But the American people, Democrats and Republicans alike, do care. The fainthearted lions of the Senate ought to bear in mind that a defiant citizenry inflamed by indignation and jealous of its rights can overwhelm a corrupt regime’s dirty electoral plans. An election with an impeached Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket is an invitation to an electoral uprising that should haunt Mitch McConnell’s dreams.