Moscow Mitch McConnell

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Normally I don't like to wish people ill, but I wouldn't shed a single tear if MoscowMitch developed some issue that left him unable to speak or continue as a senator.

 

Dear Mitch

Meh. It is what is. 😒   Thoughts and prayers. 

[47of74]

Mitch McFuckstick is really unpopular according to a Gallup poll on 11 political leaders

Quote

The single most popular leader? Chief Justice John Roberts, who has a 60% approval, compared with just a 34% disapproval. 

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell (53% approval) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci (52%) did next best.

No elected official had an approval rating above 50%; the best among electeds was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy at 46% approval.

So, you are by this point wondering who did the worst of the 11 leaders? None other than Mitch McConnell, who had a measly 34% approval rating while 63% disapproved of the Senate minority leader.

Not only does said McFuckstick have Democrats hating his guts, but it doesn't help that the GQP sees him as insufficiently loyal to the orange fuck face.

[onekidanddone]

5 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Mitch McFuckstick is really unpopular according to a Gallup poll on 11 political leaders

Not only does said McFuckstick have Democrats hating his guts, but it doesn't help that the GQP sees him as insufficiently loyal to the orange fuck face.

All nice, however it doesn’t really matter how popular he is if he keeps getting re-elected. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, Mitch, it's almost like you think Black people aren't American. Wait, you don't.

 

[fraurosena]

With a wife of Asian descent, whom I presume he loves, you'd think he'd be more accepting of those of differing ancestry and skin color. But no, of course not. It's not racism per se that drives him, I think, but the all consuming greed for power and money. I don't think he cares that muvh about racial background, other than in the context of whom they vote for and if they're rich or poor. He judges Americanism not based on race, but on wealth and social stature. As (and I know I'm generalizing here) most people of color are not rich and tend to vote for the other side, he sees them as 'other', as 'alien'-- and not true Americans.

And he is utterly vile and evil for it.

[GreyhoundFan]

Sad, but true: "Mitch McConnell’s plan is working"

Quote

At the one-year mark in President Biden’s first term, there’s no sugarcoating it: A barrage of new polls are absolutely brutal for him. Surveys from NBC News and the Associated Press both put Biden’s approval at 43 percent, and CBS News puts it at 44 percent, in large drops since last summer.

In short: Everything is going pretty much as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has planned. We know this because the Kentucky Republican told us exactly how he planned it. In fact, he laid out the playbook more than a decade ago, and it has changed little since then.

At dark moments such as these, after Biden’s voting rights agenda fell to a Republican filibuster on Wednesday night, it’s worth revisiting a largely-forgotten, 11-year-old quote from McConnell. It captures a crucial insight about U.S. politics that helps illuminate the struggles Democrats are facing, and why they feel so frustrating and intractable.

At the time, McConnell was similarly wielding his role as minority leader to obstruct another Democratic president, by denying any and all GOP support for proposals like the 2010 Affordable Care Act. McConnell explained his thinking to journalist Joshua Green:

“We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals,” McConnell says. “Because we thought — correctly, I think — that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”

The counterintuitive thought here runs as follows: Yes, Americans want the parties to cooperate in a bipartisan fashion. Yes, when the parties disagree, they might blame one side more than the other. But in McConnell’s theory, those things don’t matter.

Instead, when government is seen as dysfunctional amid partisan fighting, the president and his party are blamed, because they run the place. When Republicans uniformly oppose the president’s policies, voters fault him for failing to secure bipartisan cooperation. That’s why McConnell wants to deny him “broad agreement.”

With that in mind, we can be sure that McConnell chortled with glee as he watched Biden’s Wednesday news conference, where reporters hammered Biden for failing to achieve “unity” with Republicans. In those lines of questioning, they were effectively erased as a factor in that failure.

‘What are Republicans for?'

Every GOP senator voted to block the Democratic proposals — which would protect voting rights and restore federal preclearance of voting changes — from moving forward. Similarly, every congressional Republican opposes Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which seeks to tackle generational problems facing our country, from profound economic inequality to looming climate catastrophe.

In this case, of course, two centrist Democratic senators also stand in the way: They’re withholding support for BBB and won’t nix the filibuster to protect democracy. But uniform GOP opposition on both fronts is a major factor, and should be something Democrats can exploit politically.

Biden certainly thinks McConnell’s strategy leaves Republicans vulnerable. At his presser, he declared that in the midterms, Democrats will stress what they’ve passed, such as the rescue package (which has driven a surprisingly robust recovery) and the infrastructure bill (where bipartisanship was achieved), and vowed to get some form of BBB done.

This, Biden said, will be relentlessly contrasted with lockstep GOP opposition. He vowed that Democrats will relentlessly ask: “What are Republicans for?”

A polling double-whammy

But those new polls illustrate why McConnell’s strategy nonetheless might work. The NBC poll shows double-digit slippage for Biden since last spring among independents and core Democratic groups such as Black people and Latinos, and abysmal approval numbers on the economy and covid-19. The CBS poll shows lackluster support among liberals and finds Biden underwater with young voters.

So there may be a double-whammy here. Independents may be alienated by Biden’s inability to achieve more bipartisanship (GOP obstruction works). Meanwhile, core Democratic voters may be demoralized by the failure to accomplish big achievements (GOP obstruction isn’t enough to get them to redirect blame; they hear more about Democratic infighting).

“The Democratic base wants things to get done on a whole host of important issues,” Nick Gourevitch, a Democratic pollster, told me.

Gourevitch noted that both Democrats and independents alike might be alienated by perceptions of dysfunction. “Voters don’t pay deep attention to how things don’t get done,” he said. “They just see that things don’t get done.”

Gourevitch added that GOP obstruction might not be weighing as heavily as one might hope. “It’s not like Republicans are popular,” he said, but it’s plausible that “the voters will pay attention to who’s in charge, as they have done historically in many elections.”

None of this is to absolve Biden of blame. His broken promises on immigration may be one reason for slipping base support. He took his eye off the ball on coronavirus testing and got caught off guard by the latest surge, which surely is hurting across the board. And despite the economic rebound, inflation and supply chain issues are tainting that picture.

It may ultimately prove possible to make Republicans pay a price for obstruction. If Biden can get a smaller BBB passed and the economy keeps recovering, casting Republicans as obstacles to ongoing progress might have potency. And as the new White House focus on free tests and masks shows, it now knows defeating covid is paramount for recovery — including political recovery.

But still: The next time McConnell unleashes one of those trademark chortles, remember that 11-year-old quote. It helps explain why he’s laughing in your faces.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

On 1/20/2022 at 8:36 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Gee, Mitch, it's almost like you think Black people aren't American. Wait, you don't.

 

 

Great response to MoscowMitch:

[fraurosena]

Mitch knows something's afoot and he needs to distance himself from Trump and Trumpianism. If nothing, he is all about keeping his political power.

 

[apple1]

6 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Mitch knows something's afoot and he needs to distance himself from Trump and Trumpianism. If nothing, he is all about keeping his political power.

 

He IS about keeping his political power. And (I admit I may be wrong on this part) like Mike Pence and a handful of others, may also have a little bit of conscience left.

[Xan]

3 hours ago, apple1 said:

He IS about keeping his political power. And (I admit I may be wrong on this part) like Mike Pence and a handful of others, may also have a little bit of conscience left.

I don't think many of them even possess a conscience at this point.  Some of them are worried about actual legal consequences and others are just attempting to hold onto power.  

I don't think the statement by Pence was about conscience or locating his spine.  He probably got insider information about recent findings by the committee.  If he had a conscience, we'd have seen it in the 5 years he trailed Trump around looking like a besotted admirer.  He just wants some sort of job after this and doesn't want to go down with the ship.

McConnell is worried about losing power and maybe a little peeved about Donald's "old crow McConnell" comments.  He let Donald have free rein to ruin the country up until it looked like it might cost them another election.  As far as I can tell, Mitch doesn't have a conscience.

[fraurosena]

33 minutes ago, Xan said:

I don't think many of them even possess a conscience at this point.  Some of them are worried about actual legal consequences and others are just attempting to hold onto power.  

I don't think the statement by Pence was about conscience or locating his spine.  He probably got insider information about recent findings by the committee.  If he had a conscience, we'd have seen it in the 5 years he trailed Trump around looking like a besotted admirer.  He just wants some sort of job after this and doesn't want to go down with the ship.

McConnell is worried about losing power and maybe a little peeved about Donald's "old crow McConnell" comments.  He let Donald have free rein to ruin the country up until it looked like it might cost them another election.  As far as I can tell, Mitch doesn't have a conscience.

Mitch is all about power and stacking the courts is his means to that end. As you say, he has no conscience and will sacrifice anything and everything to hold on to power. He doesn't care about reputation or hypocrisy. Trump was his useful idiot, but Mitch will ditch him if it means he can hold onto his position. It seems that point has been reached. 

The upcoming power struggle over who holds more sway over the Republican party-- Mitch or Trump-- will be very innteresting to follow.

Edited February 9, 2022 by fraurosena
I have an Aussie accent, but pronouncing It as Ot is not part of it.

[fraurosena]

And we’re off!

 

[fraurosena]

No points for guessing which camp McCarthy’s in.

 

[fraurosena]

Mitch’s next move, in the ongoing battle with Trump over control of the GOP:

Mitch McConnell is working a behind-the-scenes campaign to make sure Trump-backed 'goofballs' don't win their primaries

Quote

Sen. Mitch McConnell is trying to thwart former President Donald Trump's efforts to shape the GOP, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

McConnell and a team of allies have for months been leading a behind-the-scenes campaign to try to recruit potential Senate candidates who could go up against Trump-backed picks. It's an effort to gain a GOP majority in the Senate, The Times reported. 

The campaign consists of phone calls, meetings, and polling memos, the paper said. 

Even after Trump vacated office last January, lawmakers have continued to argue that he maintains a tight hold on the GOP. 

Last year, for example, Sen. Lindsey Graham said he wanted to leverage Trump's influence to ensure that the Republican Party takes back the House and Senate in 2022.

In December, Graham suggested that Trump will continue to shape the political sphere and party leaders need to find a way to work with him to avoid getting ostracized.

"If you want to be a Republican leader in the House or the Senate and you don't have a relationship with Donald Trump, you cannot be effective. So I hope we'll get on the same page here," the South Carolina lawmaker said.

The Republican Party can't "grow" without him, Graham said last year.

Among Republican voters, support for Trump still remains strong. An October poll conducted by Quinnipiac University found that 78% of Republicans want to see Trump in the 2024 presidential election. That number went up from May by 12 percentage points.

McConnell, however, believes that Trump is "losing political altitude," The Times said. 

Since leaving office, Trump has been endorsing candidates running for office across the US. At least 100 people have so far received an endorsement from him since he left the White House, Insider's Warren Rojas and Jake Lahut reported.

Those endorsements do not sit well with McConnell, per The Times, who characterized some of his picks as "goofballs." 

A few of McConnell's prospects, who were not identified by The Times, declined his invitation to run for Senate. According to the report, they did not feel comfortable with the possibility of angering the former president.

 

[Becky]

McConnell can't control the "goofballs."  Trump controls them, and Trump now despises McConnell, so it's in Mitch's best interest to put his own candidates up.

[GreyhoundFan]

Mitch is fighting the push to continue feeding children in school. I guess taking care of children is against the core GQP philosophy that if it doesn't directly benefit their mango master, we can't spend money on it.

 

[SassyPants]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Mitch is fighting the push to continue feeding children in school. I guess taking care of children is against the core GQP philosophy that if it doesn't directly benefit their mango master, we can't spend money on it.

 

Children don’t vote, so are of no use to some-

[Howl]

"Mitch McConnell using campaign money to run pro-vaccine ads on 100+ Kentucky radio stations"

Mitch McConnell had polio at age 2,  before effective polio vaccines were widely available in 1955.  He's very pro vaccination.  

Mitch is Machiavellian -- as evil as they come, and a depressingly brilliant political strategist. 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

McConnell uses the leak to attack Democrats:

Today on the Senate floor:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I’m not normally violent, but I’d love to  kick him in the balls, as shriveled as they may be. He is a complete and utter asshole who is the architect of so much misery. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Mitch McConnell’s bizarre threats show danger of a GOP Congress"

Quote

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has long benefited from a kind of built-in media presumption of his tactical brilliance. His procedural feints are regularly depicted at first as masterstrokes, even though they sometimes flop, showing him to be operating from a weaker position than his perpetual aura of confidence implied.

Yet now the Kentucky Republican’s latest move is raising eyebrows among some of the savviest reporters in Washington. McConnell is threatening to tank negotiations over a major bill boosting U.S. manufacturing and research — to get Democrats to back off pursuing a Democrats-only bill addressing climate change, prescription drug prices and health-care costs.

It’s a useful warning of what a GOP-controlled Congress would look like: More governing-by-arsonist-threat, and more blockading of policies that might actually help people, justified with arguments that are saturated in bad faith and driven by no discernible vision of what’s in the public interest.

Democrats are set to respond with a new proposal to tax very high earners to extend the solvency of Medicare, a Democratic aide tells me. This will be added to a package being negotiated with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), to pass with only Democrats via “reconciliation.”

That reconciliation package — a scaled-down version of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda — also includes green energy incentives, extended Affordable Care Act subsidies and a provision for Medicare to negotiate down prescription drug prices. That roughly $1 trillion package would be funded by a rollback of some 2017 GOP tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

If the Democratic strategy works, adding the Medicare solvency provision to these proposals will put more political pressure on McConnell’s threat. The provision would impose a tax on owners of so-called “pass through” companies who earn more than $400,000 per year, to extend Medicare’s solvency through 2031.

McConnell’s approach here is a bit opaque. In response to the news that Manchin is now seriously negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) about this package, McConnell’s office renewed his threat, warning that if Democrats continue pursuing those talks, a separate bipartisan package to invest in U.S. competitiveness against China is toast.

It’s hard to discern where McConnell’s leverage is supposed to come from. As Punchbowl News reports, Democrats would obviously gain politically from unilaterally lowering prescription drug prices and extending Affordable Care Act subsidies to stave off the catastrophe of their lapsing.

In pure political terms, Democrats would surely prefer this to killing the reconciliation bill, even if it kills the China package. Democrats could then try to blame Republicans for sinking an effort to make us more competitive against China — weakening the dopey GOP talking point that Democrats are soft on China — all to block Democrats from lowering prescription drug prices and making health care more affordable.

The China bill already passed the Senate — it includes nearly a quarter-trillion dollars in investments in U.S semiconductor manufacturing, research and other technologies — but now it must be merged with the House version. This is what McConnell is threatening to tank.

The best explanation for McConnell’s position here comes from GOP strategist Liam Donovan. He notes that McConnell likely cares mainly about only one chunk of that overall package, the $52 billion in investments to shore up the computer chip industry, which is central to U.S. competitiveness with China.

In this telling, McConnell is calculating that most of his conference doesn’t particularly care about the other investments, and that the $52 billion for the chip industry will get passed one way or another anyway. So he’s really just threatening the rest of the bill.

But nonetheless, McConnell’s move is a reminder of what a GOP-controlled Congress would have in store. Presumably every single Republican will oppose the Democrats’ reconciliation bill. So a GOP Congress would slam the brakes on policies like continuing the expansion toward universal health care and investing in our transition to a green energy future.

Now add to that all-but-certain GOP opposition to closing a tax loophole — one exploited by very wealthy Americans — to shore up Medicare. And top that off with McConnell’s tactics, which are ludicrous from a public interest perspective.

After all, McConnell himself voted for the overall China bill, as did 18 other Republicans. True, McConnell and Republicans might reasonably oppose whatever version of that bill emerges from negotiations with the House on substantive grounds.

But there’s no meaningfully coherent argument for making GOP support for that eventual product hinge on whether Democrats act unilaterally to protect Medicare, keep prescription drug prices down and prevent health care premiums from chaotically spiking for millions.

And yet, if Republicans gain control of Congress, we’ll be getting a lot more of exactly this approach to governance.

 

[47of74]

Course this fuck stick is going on about the disaster when he should really sit the fuck down and shut up  

 Seriously. The orange fuckstick would’ve had all manner of excuses ready to not help Kentucky and that fuck McConnell would’ve been right there justifying it too.  

And sorry for swearing so much. That fuck stick McConnell really pisses me off. 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

This made me laugh: