Power Plays and Loose Ends

The past week showed how the great civilizations of Europe have long since gotten their acts together after three thousand years of history and how America is neither great nor civilized.  While Great Britain and the European Union have successfully finalized their separation, the United States Congress has torn itself asunder for no good reason other than for political power plays.  Trump was  pushing for more COVID stimulus money, something Democrats want (for which I give him credit) and he also pushed for a repeal of the regulation that protects Internet platforms - platforms like Twitter - from lawsuits against what their users - uses like Trump - post, along with a call for a voter-fraud investigation, neither of which Democrats want (which instantly cancels out that credit).  Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (below) proceeded to put all of that into one bill, knowing that the Democrats wouldn't vote for it (and thus the stimulus money wouldn't pass, McConnell's preferred outcome) and knowing also that Democrats would go on record as having opposed more money for Americans in desperate need.  Democrats immediately called this out, letting McConnell and their constituents know that they would not be played, and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders demanded (forcefully, but unsuccessfully) that the extra COVID stimulus money be voted on separately.  And after all that, the old Congress expired, as did the COVID extra-stimulus legislation. 

And meanwhile, the COVID vaccinations are going so slowly in the U.S. that we may be dealing with the bug for the rest of the decade - and it's only 2021.

McConnell also did this to allow Georgia's two Republican senators, David Perdue (currently in quarantine after being exposed to someone with COVID) and Kelly Loeffler, to vote for the extra money and thus improve their standing with voters in the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff elections being held tomorrow, but their respective Democratic opponents, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, have been vehement in calling out their duplicity, and they've been persistent in pushing the issue of fairness and decency at a time when Republican power plays are anything but that.  Heck, they might just pull it off and win tomorrow, giving the Democrats the Senate! 

It'll take awhile to count the votes in Georgia, though, and even if Ossoff and Warnock win, we can expect policies in 2021 to be a messy affair in which loose ends are left untied or tied very sloppily in the 117th Congress.

Georgia On His Mind

I can't wait until Trump is out of office, in part because he'll give me less to write about when he's an ex-President.  (I'm dreaming, aren't I?)

It seems that Trump - who's known for never admitting defeat - called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (above) yesterday to pressure him to find a number of votes - 11,780 votes, to be exact - that would overturn the Georgia presidential elections results and tip the state to him instead of President-elect Joe Biden.  Trump even told Raffensperger, a Republican, that his handling of elections in Georgia would be to blame for the outcome of the U.S. Senate runoffs on Tuesday should incumbent David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lose.  Raffensperger listened calmly, even made a couple of interjections (like to say that the data Trump relied on to prove his rightful win of Georgia are erroneous), and put up with Trump's guff for sixty-two minutes (one minute for every 190 votes in Georgia that Trump feels he was wrongly deprived of) before telling Trump goodbye and hanging up.  Just as calmly.

Unfortunately, this is not likely to change the minds of congressional Republicans who are siding with Trump and demanding recounts in enough states to overturn Biden's victory and concede that Biden will be President.  But it may be enough to have Trump retroactively impeached and convicted in Congress - I have heard that there's some sort of mechanism to allow that - so he can't pull a Grover Cleveland and run for a second nonconsecutive term in 2024.  By the way, Cleveland's first failed bid for a second term in 1888 ended with a popular-vote victory but he lost the electoral vote, giving him the right to run again (and win back the White House) in 1892.

Trump has more in common with the Republican President who served in between Cleveland's two terms, Benjamin Harrison.  They're the only two Presidents who lost the popular vote . . . twice!

Oh yeah, they also were instrumental in the appointments of two inept Postmasters General.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to call the high rate of COVID deaths "fake news."