Addison Mitchell McConnell, Jr., An American Hero

[Tiny]

From Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s remarks on the Senate floor, Jan. 6, 2021:

Every election features some illegality and irregularity and it’s unacceptable. I support strong state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm. But nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale that would have tipped this entire election.

Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when that doubt was incited without evidence.

The Constitution gives Congress a limited role. We cannot simply declare ourselves a national Board of Elections on steroids.

The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. If we overrule them all, it would damage our republic forever. . .

If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would bring a scramble for power at any cost. . .

Self-government requires a shared commitment to truth and shared respect for the ground rules of our system. We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes, with separate facts, and separate realities, with nothing in common except hostility toward each another and mistrust for the few national institutions that we still share. . .

There can be no double standard. The media that is outraged today spent four years aiding and abetting Democrats’ attacks on institutions after they lost.

But we must not imitate and escalate what we repudiate. Our duty is to govern for the public good. The United States Senate has a higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance.

Congress will either overrule the voters, the states, and the courts for the first time ever, or honor the people’s decision. We will either guarantee Democrats’ delegitimizing efforts after 2016 become a permanent new routine for both sides, or declare that our nation deserves better.

We will either hasten down a poisonous path where only the winners of elections accept them, or show we can still muster the patriotic courage that our forebears showed, both in victory and in defeat.

The framers built the Senate to stop short-term passions from boiling over and melting the foundations of our Republic. I believe protecting our constitutional order requires respecting limits on our own power.

It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and the states on this thin basis. And I will not pretend such a vote would be a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing.

I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.

[1blackman1]

He’s a hero for being honest and doing his job??? That like saying a man is great because he raises his kids.

Had Mitch been an honest broker the past 4 years and reigned Trump in then he’d be a hero. He gets no kudos for trying to save face after 4 years of placating the manchild.

[Tiny]

How do you deal with a demagogue when 70% or 80% of your party is strongly behind him? Mitch did the best he could. Only 8 Senate Republicans challenged the election on Wednesday. Over half of House Republicans did.

[Tiny]

I’ve never done this before but I’m giving this thread 5 stars. I love Mitch.

[1blackman1]

Originally Posted by Tiny

How do you deal with a demagogue when 70% or 80% of your party is strongly behind him? Mitch did the best he could. Only 8 Senate Republicans challenged the election on Wednesday. Over half of House Republicans did.

I know it might sound idealistic but they should have sat him down in private on day one and told him that what was acceptable snd what wasn’t. They should have shown him how hard it can be to pass legislation if you piss off congress.

Every time he did something they didn’t like they should have not been coy about his actions statements etc and just slow rolled stuff in the senate and House and made him look (more) incompetent.

The problem they had was that they never had the guts to stand up to him because they wanted to push judges and tax cuts. That was worth allowing Trump free reign to say and do whatever he wanted. He faced no condemnation or consequences and for the most part they just kept making excuses for his behavior. He’s not a politician. He is new at this. His actions don’t reflect his words. Etc.

Mitch is now minority leader again. So I’m pleased. Now those tax cuts for the rich will be repealed. Obamacare will remain the law of the land. Trumps executive orders and much of the deregulation will be undone. And liberal judges will be placed on the bench to offset the most incompetent judges appointed by Trump.

Shit that’s about all Trump did in the past 4 years. Gonna be easy to reverse. Guess that’s what happens when you have no legislative accomplishmets.

[Prolongus]

McConnell is a fucking liar and hypocrite. Even without Trump in office he denied hearings on M. Garland for a vacant SCOTUS chair. With MONTHS to go before the election. This was spring of 2016. His reason? The voters in November should decide the pick with whoever wins the election. Then he ramroded a pick with DAYS before the 2020 election of a new SCJ.

He will go down in history as a sham, a pussy for the Republicans.

[rexdutchman]

Politico that will say anything to "get by" is the overall problem

[Yssup Rider]

He’s a bona fide piece of shit who has done as much to subvert the will of the AMERICAN people as TWITLER. Only for more years.

While I give him credit for his excellent remarks after the insurrection he could have aborted years ago, I cannot forgive him for turning the Congress into the least effective body in the history of our nation.

Again, he spoke well Wednesday night, and I believe he suffered a change of heart in the past two weeks.

But make no mistake, he’s as big a POS as we’ve ever had running Congress.

Fuck that guy.

[winn dixie]

schumer and pelosi have been the biggest obstructionists.
they will truly define the term pos!

[Yssup Rider]

This message is hidden because winn dixie is on your ignore list.

It's like adding a signature line at the end of my posts. It's ALWAYS there!

Quit stalking me, winn dixie. Final request.

[eccieuser9500]

Fuck Mitch McConnell.

[matchingmole]

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by 1blackman1

I know it might sound idealistic but they should have sat him down in private on day one and told him that what was acceptable snd what wasn’t. They should have shown him how hard it can be to pass legislation if you piss off congress.

Every time he did something they didn’t like they should have not been coy about his actions statements etc and just slow rolled stuff in the senate and House and made him look (more) incompetent.

The problem they had was that they never had the guts to stand up to him because they wanted to push judges and tax cuts. That was worth allowing Trump free reign to say and do whatever he wanted. He faced no condemnation or consequences and for the most part they just kept making excuses for his behavior. He’s not a politician. He is new at this. His actions don’t reflect his words. Etc.

I have no real disagreements up to this point in your post, except that, as you say, what you propose is idealistic. It would have been awfully hard to pull off, given Trump's popularity with the majority of the Republican base and given Trump's behavior and personality.

Originally Posted by 1blackman1

Mitch is now minority leader again. So I’m pleased. Now those tax cuts for the rich will be repealed. Obamacare will remain the law of the land. Trumps executive orders and much of the deregulation will be undone. And liberal judges will be placed on the bench to offset the most incompetent judges appointed by Trump.

Shit that’s about all Trump did in the past 4 years. Gonna be easy to reverse. Guess that’s what happens when you have no legislative accomplishmets.

This is where we have huge disagreements. The Ryan/McConnell/Trump corporate tax cuts and deregulation played a big part in bringing pre-Covid unemployment down to record low levels, and boosting middle class wages more in one year than what we saw during all 8 years of Obama's terms. And Obama had the advantage of coming out of a recession. Admittedly, Covid wrecked that. But our economic performance during Covid has been better than most Western (non-Asian) developed countries.

The belief that Trump's judges were incompetent is misplaced. Conservative, yes, incompetent, no. They were carefully vetted (not by Trump of course), and when Trump attempted to overturn the election, they ruled against him. That's not to say I necessarily would agree with his picks. While I vote Republican and Libertarian mostly, I usually vote for Democrats for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. While I'm a strong believer in reform of the criminal justice system, I mostly don't give a flying fuck who the judges are. I figure the Republican judges are probably more favorable for business and the Democrats for criminal reform, so it's a wash.

Finally, on Obamacare -- Obama, Trump, the Republicans, the Democrats, they've done nothing to improve our health care system. A pox on all their houses. We spend 18% of GDP on health care, a ridiculous amount that will bankrupt the country. And still people slip through the cracks. In rankings, we're typically behind Costa Rica and about even with Cuba in health care outcomes.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by Prolongus

McConnell is a fucking liar and hypocrite.

I believe Pelosi, Schumer and Trump are bigger fucking liars and hypocrites. Pelosi and Schumer are a lot more arrogant and sanctimonious than McConnell. Speaking of hypocrisy, how about Schumer railing against carried interest treatment of income realized by private equity and hedge funds for years, while he'd make sure any attempts to change that were held up in committee.

Originally Posted by Prolongus

Even without Trump in office he denied hearings on M. Garland for a vacant SCOTUS chair. With MONTHS to go before the election. This was spring of 2016. His reason? The voters in November should decide the pick with whoever wins the election. Then he ramroded a pick with DAYS before the 2020 election of a new SCJ.

He will go down in history as a sham, a pussy for the Republicans.

I believe Garland should have been given an up and down vote in the Senate. I'm not sure you can blame that entirely on McConnell. Like Pelosi, who has to balance the views of the progressives and moderates in her party, McConnell has to balance opposing Republican views. In public he's going to spout the party line, what the majority of his caucus demands. That could be what happened for Garland. The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee decided not to give him a shot, and McConnell went along.

[Prolongus]

Doesn’t matter if Senate controlled Republicans would have voted Garland down. We’ll never know, because McConnell failed in his responsibility to bring it to a hearing.