592 Comments

That weak shell of a person standing in a mostly empty Senate chamber crying as he announced his future departure, reviewing some of his history through selective memory, and acting as if anyone with even a modicum of integrity would feel even one tiny bit of regret at his announcement was a nauseating moment. He is a despicable elected whose "legacy" is one of deep, long-lasting harm to our nation, one of hateful racism in his treatment of President Obama, and one of a craven, cruel perspective on governance beyond his own self-interest, power and self-enrichment.

The happiness that his departure will engender can only be exceeded by the happiness on the day that trump and his criminal organization are in prison.

Expand full comment

And after his speech as Mitch & colleagues milled about &/or gave congrats....Chuck Schumer the lapdog strolls up and shakes his hand. Mitch is the creature that Biden admires & refers to as 'an honorable man who I consider a friend' 😬....our elderly leadership is in grips of Stockhom Syndrome & its deflating & heartbreaking.

Expand full comment

Sad but true Douglas.

The problem is that the Senate is a club, a country club, the ruling ethos is comity, bipartisanship, my friend across the aisle.

This is the ethos, that dominates among the old farts, McConnel, Schumer and Biden (yes Biden's hearrt is still in the Senate, he spent 34 years there learning and being conditioned towards comity, compromise, brotherhood with other senators.

The Senate is no different than say the Marines and other "special units", you've heard it,"Once a Marine always a Marine". I don't buy it, but hundreds of thousands do.

Walk into any VFW or AmLegion, and you can sidle up to the bar, and join people who have served anywhere from months to 30 years, and that is their identity because it is the only thing of significance in their entire life.

And Don't rag me. I'm a retired Mustang and special operator.. A Mustang is enlisted to officer., none of that is my identity and that is not how I roll.

Anyway the Senate is one big club. Right wingers and left wingers frolicked and party together as they did on Joe Manchins, houseboat/yacht Almost Heaven

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/joe-manchin-boat/2021/08/05/a3575508-f5e7-11eb-a49b-d96f2dac0942_story.html

Expand full comment

Please don't compare the Senate to the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps has an untarnished 250-year history of honor earned with the lives and blood of thousands of patriots. There is NO comparison to be made. NONE!

Expand full comment

I get that Bombguy. My Dad was the adjutant for the 1st JASCO in the Pacific, and was seriously wounded in Korea, retired after 20 years in the Corps. I retired after 26 years in spec ops

But the point about comity and comradeship in the Corps is valid for the Senate as well, and for all "special" groups.

Expand full comment

Got it.

Expand full comment

Honor earned with the lives and blood of thousands stinks to high heaven.

Expand full comment
founding

Jim, I agree with you. I can also see Lee's point.

Expand full comment

And I, respectfully, do to. But I have never considered my service as a Marine EOD tech as part of a club. I've had the honor of serving with dedicated service members from all the services, including special operators, and I simply choose not to consider the Senate in the same regard. As a body, they simply have not earned that comparison.

Expand full comment

Surely you're not naive enough to believe that our elected representatives (at least, the ones who last...) never swallow their pride and suck up to Deplorables as needed to get business done. It's the reason the very words "politics" and "politicians" instantly bring to mind a negative reaction in so many people.

Amazon Prime subscribers might want to check out the 3-season dark comedy "Alpha House" about 4 Republican congressmen who share a house in D.C. during the Obama administration. It was conceived by Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) and has excellent writing, acting, and editing. I just started watching this and am wishing there were an updated version to get us through our current anguish. Still -- not surprising -- many of the topics are still relevant: immigration, abortion, fair labor practices, etc. etc.

I'm guessing it didn't last more than 3 seasons because its humor is based on current events and politics. Still, if you pay attention, there are plenty of generic gems to delight. Last night, I watched as the one Democratic senator invited to a Republican prayer breakfast at the Alpha House rolled her eyes as all the White Republicans tried to clap along to the music. They couldn't find the beat! If you blink, you might miss it -- but it was golden.

Expand full comment

UPDATE/CORRECTION: There were only 2 seasons. :-(

Expand full comment

Bullshit!

Expand full comment

Tourette's?

Expand full comment

Fact.

Expand full comment

If they ever are. With the supreme court actively aiding and abetting his delay tactics to keep his trial(s) until after the election it's looking unlikely that we'll see any meaningful action in that direction this year. And if he manages to steal this election like he did 2016, there's no way in hell he'll ever face consequences.

And if the Democrats manage to beat out all the voters suppression, gerrymandering, and whatever other heinous garbage the Republicans are cooking up, the illegitimate fascists on the court will just declare him immune anyway.

Hell, if he appeals the election results all the way up and they get a chance to do a repeat of Bush v Gore, they'll hand the election to him in a heartbeat, giggling the whole time.

Expand full comment

Agree with everything you say here, Lucius, except your accusation that TFG stole the 2016 election. It's a sad fact that, due to the antiquated structure of the electoral college, the orange one won as fairly as the other candidates who've carried the electoral college despite losing the popular vote (four, including JQA and GWB, although if not for SCOTUS, GWB wouldn't have won the EC, but that's another post). I think it's important to make the distinction, because Dems shouldn't use any of the MAGA language.

Also, 2016 was Hillary's election to lose, and she ran a horrible, tone-deaf campaign, not even bothering with large sections of the country. She GAVE TFG the election.

Expand full comment

True. But let's not forget the assistance Putin rendered to his useful idiot -- including introducing the red herring of Hillary's emails. That went a long way to tipping the results in the wrong direction.

Expand full comment

Yes. The hype about "her emails" including Comey's last minute reveal about another probe that ended up nothing while he neglected address Russia links to Trump campaign were a big factor in 46% of registered voters who stayed home. That was the deciding factor in key swing states that gave TFG the elecoral vote despite Clinton's overall popular vote lead.

Expand full comment

Well....I have to admit that I've never believed Russia influenced that election to any significant extent. I don't think the email scandal was a big deal outside the Beltway, for the simple reason that most voters aren't news junkies (and the emails

were kind of a complex, arcane issue, anyway). They vote more by emotion than critical assessment. I studied Hillary and her policies, and the woman scared me. Not as much as the orange manbaby did, of course. But she was just not a viscerally appealing candidate, like Obama was, for instance. I think the majority of voters react instead of analyze.

Expand full comment

Agree...most voters are not news junkies. But they DO absorb twitter memes and bumper-sticker battle cries. And so, many who could not (or, more accurately, would not expended the effort to) process Hillary's explanations about her policy positions and ideas clung instead to the outrage of something-something about emails -- even if they didn't understand what was alleged or that she did not violate any policies regarding handling of information.

Expand full comment

Perceptive point, Dalatias. Bet you're spot on there.

I still think, however, that if Hillary had been a more appealing candidate, and not so openly contemptuous of so many demographic groups (including on the Dem side), she'd have carried the day. But she stuck by Slick Willy, making no attempt to distance herself from, say, NAFTA, that had tanked so many U.S. jobs, she came across as an elite Establishment snob (which, essentially, I think she is). Totally wrong optics when battling a "man of the people," as TFG [totally falsely] proclaimed himself to be. Her husband had the gift of seeming to relate to everybody, while she didn't even bother with the pretense of doing so.

Expand full comment

Hillary thought she was entitled by divine right as the former Queen Consort. And that iteration of the DNC was as crooked as the day is long. (Not sure they’ve improved much.)

Expand full comment

IMO, they're at least as bad now, if not worse. Right at the trough with the RNC. Main difference is that the DNC isn't trying for an out-and-out autocracy.

Expand full comment

Actually, the DCCC may be the worst. They are still trying to purge the Squad and the rest of the House progressives… doing AIPAC’s dirty work.

Expand full comment

BINGO, Greg! Spot on!

Expand full comment

Yes we do have a totally slime ball Catholic Supreme Court. I wouldn't be surprised if they started the American Inquisition. In fact things are starting to line up exactly the way they did in Spain and the 1400s just before the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, these are Sick Puppies. Come on them with the dominionist who don't seem to pervade the Republican Party and you have got an atomic bomb of your own

Expand full comment

I remember watching him in the senate on Jan6 prior to the vote to validate Biden's election, and thinking something was wrong. He seemed emotionally more engaged than I expected. I couldn't figure out why, was he sad drumpf was leaving? We knew he didn't like him. What was going on?

I think he knew what the MAGgots had planned, and he was sorrowful about there. Kind of like watching Andy Card come up to W reading My Pet Goat when the towers were attacked. It was an "oh my god they did it " look.

Damn McConnell

Expand full comment

This implies that McConnell is capable of empathy and sorrow.

Expand full comment

Please let it be in the near future.

Expand full comment

An instructive take by ol' Beau that avoids railing about the obvious: https://youtu.be/uTH_b-eAvN4?si=YXnADjXCT4yF-Hhj

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29·edited Feb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Oh phew! I thought I was the only one who remembered the Gop shrieking "RED TIDE!!!" in 2022 before they "won." A "red tide" is a deadly algae bloom, so it fits perfectly!

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Get out the BLUE vote or try to survive the consequences.

Turns out rural America thinks Trump's their guy.

Trump and Republicans will cut the 400 programs rural Americans use; yet they are not aware of all the programs nor the fact that rural America is reliant on them. Discuss.

https://www.wamc.org/podcast/the-roundtable/2024-02-28/white-rural-rage-the-threat-to-american-democracy-by-tom-schaller-and-paul-waldman

Expand full comment

This is bed rock political irony. And sadness beyond words.

Expand full comment

Trump's MAGA hordes are like sheep being led to the slaughter, silly grins on their faces, totally oblivious to the stun hammer poised just ahead of them. My only pity is for their stupidity.

Expand full comment

My pity is for all the rest of us who have to deal with the results of their ignorance and malice. How many of our people are now afraid to speak out or act against the MAGAts. for fear of the consequences?

Expand full comment

We’re learning more and more about how we turned up with justices like the power 6 who are burdened by their bags of gold.

Expand full comment

They think they're the only ones who won't get cut.

Expand full comment

Still baffled at Rick Scott, Mr. Medicare Fraud, able to be in Senate! What is going on?!! (Rhetorical)

Expand full comment

Criminals support criminals.

Expand full comment

It's not called the American fascist party formally the Republi-Con Party for no reason at all

Expand full comment

Bill Frist is another Republican who was elected to the Senate from Tennessee and was, in fact, Senate Majority Leader. Looking at his Wikipedia entry today, I did not see any reference to his and his family's history of fraud, but if you can find the entirety of this article (I'm posting just part of it because it's long, but VERY interesting about the fraud, arrogance and corruption, so if you can and have interest, maybe you can still find it online; it's not a linkable URL anymore, that I could find):

"LA WEEKLY JANUARY 10 - 16, 2003

The Bad Doctor

Bill Frist’s long record of corporate vices

by Doug Ireland

While TV gushed last week over the Republicans’ new Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, intervening in a traffic accident, portraying the former heart surgeon as a "Good Samaritan," in truth the GOP has simply replaced a racist with a corporate crook.

Frist was born rich, and got richer — thanks to massive criminal fraud by the family business. The basis of the Frist family fortune is HCA Inc. (Hospital Corporation of America), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, which was founded by Frist’s father and brother. And, just as Karl Rove was engineering the scuttling of Trent Lott and the elevation of Frist, the Bush Justice Department suddenly ended a near-decadelong federal investigation into how HCA for years had defrauded Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare (the federal program that covers the military and their families), giving the greedy health-care behemoth’s executives a sweetheart settlement that kept them out of the can.

The government’s case was that HCA kept two sets of books and fraudulently overbilled the government. The deal meant that HCA agreed to pay the government $631 million for its lucrative scams — which, on top of previous fines, brought the total government penalties against the health-care conglomerate to a whopping $1.7 billion, the largest fraud settlement in history, breaking the old record set by Drexel Burnham.

The deal also meant that HCA can continue to participate in Medicare. And, as part of the Bushies’ deal shutting down what Deputy Assistant FBI Director Thomas Kubic called "one of the FBI’s highest-priority white-collar crime investigations," no criminal charges were brought against the top HCA execs who presided over the illegal bilking of federal programs designed to aid the poor — and that includes Senator Frist’s brother, Thomas, HCA’s former CEO (and current director), who’s been described by Forbes magazine as "one of the richest men in America," with a personal fortune estimated at close to $2 billion.

What did HCA do? It inflated its expenses and billed the government for the overrun; it billed the government for services ineligible for reimbursement (like advertising and marketing costs). HCA violated both law and medical ethics when, as Forbes put it, "the company increased Medicare billings by exaggerating the seriousness of the illnesses they were treating. It also granted doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors’ referring patients to HCA. In addition, it gave doctors ‘loans’ that were never expected to be paid back, free rent, free office furniture — and free drugs from hospital pharmacies."

This is the ethical climate that reigned in the Frist family’s money machine. In an unguarded moment, Senator Frist told the Boston Globe that conversations with his doctor father about the family calling were like "benign versions of the Godfather and Michael Corleone." Apparently the senator considers defrauding the government "benign." So too does the Bush White House, which dictated the Justice Department deal with HCA that let the crooks escape jail just as Frist was being anointed the Senate’s majority leader. A pure coincidence in timing, of course."

And, as I said, the article goes on; it's great reporting from "back then." Frist, "the good doctor," is still out there in Republican-world, making his noise. Apparently he was able to scrub the Wikipedia entry; a benefit of once-owning "scrubs" I reckon.

Expand full comment

My wife and I are in.

We will remove Scott.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Janet Adams

We worked for Val Demings during her race against Rubio. Although not successful we gained confidence and experience in doing door to door campaigning.

We live in Monroe County and worked here and in Dade County south of Miami. I agree that Scott has won by the thinnest of margins. It beats me as others have mentioned that he is a Senator with his Medicare fraud record. In these times what behavior would count someone out? I’m baffled.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

J Adams

No I didn’t see anything about that fraud case.

In speaking about the press they are really the best source for countering the huge glob of misinformation contaminating the public discourse in our country. Dr Reich and H Lofthouse are putting it out there but it seems that the rest of the media are not doing their best in that direction.

Expand full comment

She will be a breath of fresh air.

Expand full comment

Professor Reich,

It’s Hard to believe they could find anyone worse than Moscow Mitch. He almost single handedly created the mess we are in now!

Expand full comment

I'm sure they can find someone worse; I just hope whoever they pick is as incompetent as Mike Johnson.

Expand full comment

I don’t know, Mutant Mike Johnson is very incompetent. He doesn’t even know the teachings of Jesus!

Expand full comment

Maybe Donnie can instruct Mike about the bible. Donnie said he reads it every night.

Expand full comment

Which testament does Donnie like, both). Wait did they say testimony? Oh no he doesnt like to testify. Whats his favourite verse? The fifth.

Expand full comment

Someone will probably have to get Drumpf the Cliff's Notes version. I know he could never understand it otherwise.

Expand full comment

You need to teach him to read, first. Or, find the graphic novel version.

Expand full comment

Break it down into a series of tweets.

Expand full comment

I don’t think he could understand the Cliff Notes.

Expand full comment

Donald Hodgins

Donald’s Substack

just now

Mitch might have been a thorn in the side of many Democrats but there must have been something good about the man because he saw it fitting not to speak with the orange guy for the last 3 years. If the MAGA crowd would just follow suit, we might be able to forget Mr. Trump once and for all.

Expand full comment

That's because Elaine Chao, spouse of Mitch, Trump's Secretary of Transportation, said he should have been removed from office as nutsy koo koo. https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/11/politics/elaine-chao-trump-cabinet-january-6-25th-amendment/index.html

“Does Coco Chow have anything to do with Joe Biden’s Classified Documents being sent and stored in Chinatown?” Trump wrote. “Her husband, the Old Broken Crow, is VERY close to Biden, the Democrats, and, of course, China.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/elaine-chao-issues-rare-rebuke-trump-racist-attacks-rcna67605

Expand full comment

Beautiful! Thank you, Daniel. You made my day!

Expand full comment

Daniel--Believe what you will but the truth is so much more satisfying than a lie.

Expand full comment

What does that mean?

Expand full comment

I think Moscow took exception to how Trump insulted his wife

Expand full comment

Keith--The last thing anyone wants to do is to Ras-Putin.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Paul--Who said anything about justice, the man broke the law and now he is going to pay the price.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

You don't think punishing a criminal justice? Maybe you should consider just question for a moment if you might, I say might, be a criminal yourself. Who else supports a criminal like you do.

Expand full comment

For Mike and his ilk, Jesus is a sock puppet, what ever is in the NT is irrelevant.

There is one word to describe him and his ilk, and that is Solipsists, self worshipers.

The use their god, their Bible, their Jesus as a sock puppet, and that is true of all religions, and religious leaders.

Expand full comment

There are more where he came from.

Expand full comment

He makes them up

Expand full comment

Of course not he's a dominionist. That has nothing to do with the teachings of jesus. He's an old Soviet style communist is what he is.

Expand full comment

"Incompetent" is the key word here. Moscow was the LONE competent man-demon in the ENTIRE Trumplican party!

Expand full comment

"The grim reaper' by his own bragging!

Expand full comment

IDK. ThatMike Johnson incompetence cuts both ways. We have a 5 year old religious nut with momentous power.McCarthy looking better every day. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-ideas-qa-00123882

Keith you're going to have to use your imagination. It would help to think about things like a crook in order to get ahead of the crooked machinations of MAGA leadership.

Expand full comment

McCarthy is looking better? Better than what. Johnson at least has an agenda. Granted it is an agenda to take the population of the United States and make them into slaves, but it is an agenda. All McCarthy ever was was a lap dog for the Rump. Both of these guys are simply the butt end of a joke about the American fastest party.

Expand full comment

Yeah, but Mike Johnson is managing to keep Ukraine from getting any money. He’s not incompetent *enough*.

Expand full comment

Unfortunately true.

Expand full comment

The major function of party leaders in the Senate and House is fund raising. Although the head of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee is Steven Daines of Montana, the real expert and the person that the donors go to is the Minority or Majority Leaders.

Same with the house. Pelosi, though Speaker, was actually the whip and the DCCC fund raiser.

Expand full comment

Moscow Mitch did a lot more than fundraising.

Expand full comment

The damage Moscow Mitch did to America is incalculable. It will take more than a generation to heal and mend the damage McConnell created. There is a special place in hell for him because he had the ability to help so many people and he did not; he turned his back.

Expand full comment

Mitch and Newt Gingrich top my list as the two politicians who created the great Divide in politics. They have done everything to dismantle bipartisan politics. Both will go down in history as doing serious damage to America. There would be no President Donald Trump if not for their sickening actions.

Expand full comment

You make a good point but when you look at it they're both fascists. Fascist members of the American fascist party (formerly the Republican Party) have only created the Great divide but brought us a fascist Commander in Chief. No we have to work our butts off to get rid of the son of a...

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

It was the lies, the hypocrisy, the disingenuousness that Moscow Mitch McConnell embodied. Didn’t you read the article? This man did not care about his constituents or the poor or race relations.

It was the absolute power he could wield.

History will judge him and not kindly.

Expand full comment

Paul, how so? I am missing something.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Your reference to Obama. Could you elaborate?

Expand full comment

Who would believe they could outdo Bush in destructive capability, and they come up with Trump. We have a political generation steeped in the wrecking ball tradition. Anything is possible.

Expand full comment

What a reflection on the Reprehensible Republican Party that they can’t provide someone better than Donald Trump to be their nominee for president.

Expand full comment

There isn’t anyone. The whole party is full of miscreants.

Expand full comment

All the American fascist party formerly the Republican Party can do, is to put up one of their own.

Expand full comment

Seeing the name J D Vance at the end of Prof. Reich’s comments is a horror wothy of Texas Chainsaw Massacre status…

Expand full comment

Perfectly stated. :|

Expand full comment

And I’m shaking in fear under my bed …

Expand full comment

True but the choices that were mentioned would be just as bad if not worse especially JD Vance like Professor Reich indicated. The evil orange puppetmaster will continue to have have a firm grip on those strings from behind the scenes whether he's reelected or not. We can only hope that between between the ballot box in November and the upcoming trials will help start the demise of his autocratic madness.

Expand full comment

They have an entire party of people who are just as bad or worse. Mitch wasn't any more or less vile than the rest of them, he was just the one given the opportunity to act on it and he had enough sense to not shout racial slurs in front of news cameras. Whoever they pick will be worse, not because the new one will be more evil, they'll be worse because they won't have the constraints that Mitch did.

Expand full comment

Last fall we were pretty pleased to see Kevin McCarthy kicked out. How did that work out?

Expand full comment

Not too good 😡

Expand full comment

Correct and there was the premature ejaculation over the Mueller Report, and the orgasmic anticipation of Jack Smith, and nothing has happened, and won't ever.

Expand full comment

Keith, the mess is by design.

Expand full comment

Keith ; with a little help from his 'fiends'!

Expand full comment
deletedFeb 29
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

David Engelbach — And we know that someone willing to behave VERY badly derives at least a short-term advantage over someone who wants to behave with integrity, but STILL, I insist that integrity is necessary.

Because after that short term advantage, the person willing to behave badly will drive ALL OF US over the cliff …

I keep asking, what are our options?

We need savvy, functional, OPTIONS that don’t drive us right over that cliff with the Republicans.

I don’t have the answers. I have a ton of questions.

Expand full comment

McConnell is the prime example of the damage that a politician whose first allegiance is to their party can do. The one thing that I can never forget or forgive him for is presiding over destroying the Supreme Court as a useful institution. There were, of course, lots of other examples of the damage that he helped facilitate, but nothing as significant as far as I'm concerned.

Expand full comment

I'd say his first allegiance is to the Oligarchs. One can argue that is who the entire Republican party supports as only a select few I can count on one hand in the Senate and Congress are not Oligarch kissers (most not seeking reelection).

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

You're talking about the made-up constitution that Thomas, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett, Scalia, Gorsuch, and Roberts referred to when they declared that unlimited numbers of guns with huge magazines are exactly what the framers had in mind when they wrote about a well-regulated militia being necessary? The one that says "no establishment of religion" when Lauren Boebert talks about how the church should govern the state, not the other way around without a peep from anyone in the Republican party? The 16th century British document that Scalia used to justify outlawing abortion - that Constitution?

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Semantics, semantics. If every single individual act of the government needed to be elucidated in our Constitution, they’d still be writing the damned thing!!

That argument about abortion does not hold.

The Constitution talks about categories of legal and regulatory authority, not specifics. So, tsk. Just stop. Your gas stove is in no real danger, though like gas-guzzling cars, it’s not doing our planet any favors.

Regarding the Constitution, the SCOTUS today is parsing language like you did, and as though the last couple hundred years didn’t happen, and I think behaving very, very venally in cherry-picking things that were said as the constitution WAS being written.

It was VERY clear that our framers did not intend to empower ANY religion over any other, nor even to sideline atheists or agnostics. They said as much, while they were working on the document and gaining support to have it accepted.

The very RECENT reinterpretation of the Second Amendment is telling in that regard — it was LONG recognized as supporting the right of the people to maintain an organized and well-run militia, but not to keep any and all guns willy-nilly in their possession or on their person at all times. OTHERWISE, why even MENTION the well-regulated militia?

I think they thought, they’d be understood, and no one would ever suggest they meant the current reading of the Second.

But those who claim to be returning to “originalism” have pulled the wool over people’s eyes. What they are really doing is semantic legerdemain — they are interpreting the language of a couple hundred years ago — and the CULTURE of that time — in terms of today’s language and culture only. And handing down dictates that are in keeping with people who will “rationalize” the constitution, not respect it. {I LIKE that we can see its faults and amend it to make it better — heaven knows the framers were not reading a crystal ball into the future and projecting a perfect union. They said they hoped to form a MORE perfect union than the one they already had, and it’s OUR job to keep forming a MORE perfect union. But reading language and culture from a couple hundred years ago and refusing to include an overlay on the realities of change that have occurred since then — like what we should be doing about weapons in a country of 350-million people{!!!} who need a well-regulated militia — that’s sophistry. It’s illegitimate. It has no integrity.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

So YOU decide what I ‘probably’ believe and then go on to argue with your own decree about what I ‘probably’ believe, which is off the wall, as you well know.

Just stop it.

Expand full comment

The constitution says " All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." and so does not recognize the pre-born and the declaration of independence cites that we all have the inalienable right to liberty, so states should not be allowed to deny us the liberty of our own bodily autonomy.

Expand full comment
RemovedMar 1
Comment removed
Expand full comment

I think Roe v Wade was not outside of the federal governments scope. You asked " Where in the Constitution does the federal government get the power to regulate abortion?" Abortion is never mentioned specifically, but is implicit in our personal freedom. The transition from a single fertilized cell to a person has no hard lines. Some births seem viable right up until birth but can't survive outside the mother. The start of the 3rd trimester was a reasonable call, but there can be no right "number of days" call. It is a decision for the parents, not the state. I do not choose to answer questions about who I am.

Expand full comment

What a guy you are you’ll make up any line of reasoning to project your losing political position.

Next I expect you start defending THE DREAD SCOTT decision and petition for the return of Slavery. After all some of the founding fathers owned slaves , the Capitol building that houses Congress and the Senate.

the Supreme Court is a bunch of lawyers steeped Lawyer School , that believe in process vs Facts. Process is warped when the congress R stop the appointment of Obama selected replacement of dead Supreme Court members. The Republicans are the handmaidens of trumpet 🎺 professional epic liar , rapeist, and draft dodger…

When trumpet 🎺 loses the next election and the republicans agents of Putin the Russian Hitler trying to start WWIII.

They will resign and retire from congress. The Gazpacho babe and the other loudmouths will disappear back under the rocks they climbed out of.

You Can Fool Some of The Prople Some of The Time but You CAN’T Fool all of the People All of The Time .

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

The big mistake about Covid is that the simple fact vaccines work to make you a little sick after vaccination that will reduce you chance of getting dead later.

I’ve been getting vaccines since 18 never refused one ever.

Recently I got RSV and Covid booster same day different arms. I was sick ( not feeling well ) for 24 hrs and that was all.

To sell vaccines as a cure all is a mistake…

My kids were at MMR Vaccine age Ang that British ass doctor that was pushing the vaccine causes Autism bs was rampant . Our decision was to get them vaccinated but in three steps measles first six weeks wait then the second vaccine , six weeks then the last vaccine.

The risk of vaccines causing problems is small compared to the risk of getting the disease, the vaccines are preventing.

All of medicine is predicated on statistical data. Meaning the risk of treatment is much more reduced than the actual disease.

In pandemic, the first round of infections is much more transmittable and deadly , subsequent rounds of infections are less deadly and harder to catch until we have cases or regular flu is just a inconvenience for a week. Where is the first round of flu had a higher rate. By the way warfare is predicated on the same statistical analysis..

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Where did you go to medical school?

Expand full comment

My PhD in molecular biology brother-in-law who specialized in viruses and worked on HIV and mRNA research begged to differ with you, Paul. When it came to decisions regarding vaccines, the type of vaccine that was developed, and just letting COVID show up an wreak its havoc, he endorsed the vaccines we were offered, and we took ‘em {including my 99-year-old mother and 96-year-old father, and our family’s babies.

Onward and upward.

Expand full comment

Paul!

Reacting to something you write by telling you to knock it off is not censoring.

Censoring is preventing you from keeping it up.

I kind of see that you are keeping it up.

You are NOT censored. You are criticized.

Get over it.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

OK, you wish “my side” would stop censoring free speech on social media … First of all, ALL SIDES are up in arms about what is and isn’t allowed to be said on social media.

And second, you have no idea what “my side” is on any issue unless I have expressly conveyed my opinion. My position cannot be pegged based on knowing which “side” of the Conservative/Liberal continuum I usually land on.

And I’m way opposed to censorship, having been a journalist for more than forty years.

And finally, our “free speech” right pertains to government being restrained from censoring us, absent an overarching reason like inciting violence or libeling, slandering, or invading the privacy of someone who is a private person.

You don’t have a right to express yourself in a private forum, unless the owner of the forum says you do.

Right now, there’s talk about which aspects of the Internet are actually private and which have now risen to the level of “common carrier” like the phone company, but that’s another conversation.

Expand full comment

Trumps, more literate, alter ego, are you Paul? How about a QAnon/RFK jr conspiracy theorist.

Truthfully I wish Fauci had not tried to convince people to mask and vaxx, because those with common sense would and did volunarily.

There would be fewer right wing idiots if none of them vaxxed and masked.

I am all for thinning the herd of diseased animals. like libertarians, theocrats, fascists, Trump humpers.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

I like that last sentence!

Expand full comment

The vaccines most certainly WILL help most people with basically functioning immune systems. Do you know anything about vaccines?

Expand full comment

Those that follow the advice that you are hawking, deserve the suffering of long covid, and death that comes from following your advice.

I have had seven COVID shots, two shingles, the flu shot, the RSV, and the DPT shot, that is just this year and last, not to mention the bubonic plaque shot, and almost every other shot conceivable to man, including polio, small pox and guess what here I am healthy as can be for age 85 (not even a sore arm from the shots). except for the lung cancer and insulin resistance, the former is self inflicted from smoking the latter is genetic (inherited), but no communicable diseases, other than chickenpox and rubella as a child.

You have my heartfelt wishes that you achieve your goal of early termination.

Expand full comment

Professor Reich: moscow mitch has left the congress and the world worse than it was when he was elected to public office. for example, with a rethuglican SCOTUS peopled with religious extremists (sometimes -- rightly IMO -- known as the "christian taliban"), only wealthy white men and corporations will be treated as human under the law. the climate is guaranteed to continue its rapid deterioration and all life on the planet will be decimated, leaving Earth as a hot dry dustball for many millions, or even billions of years. this crisis is apparent to all with eyes: even leaders from nations around the world are openly appealing to the US government to stop the horseplay and get our shit together.

Expand full comment

Sadly, he is just stepping down from his minority leader position. He is staying in Congress.

Expand full comment

2 more years until Amy McGrath can wipe the floor with whoever is his successor (if he doesnt medically retire first).

Expand full comment

My guess is he won't run again in 2026.

Expand full comment

That's funny! I give ole' Moscow . . . 130,000 more minutes of life. (90 days)

Expand full comment

He said he won't.

Expand full comment
founding

Ron Johnson said he wouldn't run, but he was lying, we know that now.

Expand full comment

I didn't see that. Kinda makes my comment redundant?

Expand full comment

There was this song written years ago that stated Mitch's philosophy on how to survive in Washington, " Bend me, break me anyway you need me--" and that is exactly the way Mr. McConnell conducted his business. Spinless at times, infuriating and belligerent, but through it all I would take 10 Mitch's over even the idea of a "Donald Trump." There is but one antidote to cure us of Donnie Boy's ills, "time."

Expand full comment

Don,

Moscow Mitch laid the ground work for Trumpty the mobster. Mitch twisted the Senate rules to minority rule, stopping the Senate from any effective lawmaking. He screwed Kentucky, aiding the Red wave. His wife's very wealthy family runs shipping out of Wuhan and other major Chinese ports. Some wonder that the precursor chemicals for fentanyl and meth travel from Wuhan to Mexico or Columbia...

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

I wasn't that inclined to inject bleach to treat Covid-19, yet Trump thought that was a good idea.

I also don't like the way he now won't allow the GOP to fix the border.

And I guess for # 3 - I don't like the way Trump wants to leave NATO and abandon Ukraine.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

"At this point I think we are just further adding to the misery of the Ukrainian people by continuing the fight rather than by fostering a settlement,"

Really. You remind me of Chamberland with Hitler in 1938.

FWIW, Its the Ukrainians who don't ever want to have Putins knee on their necks.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Trump was drawing an analogy on the bleach? Roll on the floor laughing my ass off.

I will say this Paul, you are the most literate right wing Troll, I've seen on the internet. The way you rationalize and excuse Trump and fascism, exposes you, and does nothing for your messaging.

Expand full comment

Paul --His views on NATO, his views on our Southern border, his views on how to be compassionate to those who have less than he does.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Paul--My views on Mr. Trump's compassion are a bit hazy because he has never told the truth about anything for me to formulate a position on the man that would in any way be perceived as being positive. I just can't bring myself to support a Laier.

Expand full comment

Trump sets up charities as fronts, for his personal use.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

#3 -- calling dead veterans "losers" and "suckers."

Just one example of many of his crude, crass comments.

Expand full comment

“Surprise”, (sarcasm)The Supreme Court of the United States ruled yesterday in Trump’s favor!! They are taking his case of whether or not he has total immunity as the president. And guess what?

They won’t even hear the case until April 22.

Why can’t they be honest with the American people and just say they are going to leave it up to the voters in November?

Expand full comment

The Supreme Corrupt. The MAGA court is dominated by Oligarch kissers. Justice in service to companies, oligarchs and autocrats. The 2nd Biden term is going to need some court packing.

Expand full comment

With men like Gaetz, Comer, Jordon and women like Boebert and Greene the Republican party would be hard pressed to find a replacement for Mitch from a group that wouldn't come up to his boot laces. If the current Republican party was a financial institution, it would be suffering from a negative cash flow. Fragmented, disjointed, and dumbfounded are the three breakfast foods Trump swallows every morning before finding the intestinal fortitude to lie his way through yet another day.

Expand full comment

Most of the repugnant people you mentioned are in the House, but I get your point.

The Senate doesn’t have much to offer from the Republican side. Also whoever is appointed has to be approved by their Putin loving criminal.

Expand full comment
founding

I don't know the rules covering the replacement of McConnell if he 'steps down'. But rules won't really matter, will they?

Expand full comment

Keith--I thought Trump had to do that. 😁

Expand full comment

"finical intuition" Did your spell correct play a joke on you? Mine does it to me frequently.

Expand full comment

Gloria--I had a stroke not that long ago and one of its lasting affects is the loss of any ability to spell and visually see the error. I make some really interesting looking words.

Expand full comment

I haven't had a stroke and I do it. You must have meant "financial institution" and you point is well taken.

Expand full comment

Gloria--I may have miss spelled it, but you caught my drift. LOL

Expand full comment

You made me look up "finical" and it is actually a word.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Paul--How do you know what I would or wouldn't like.

Expand full comment

Donald, didn't you know that BJ (blow job) is a mind reader? One of his many skills, besides being a disruptor, hijacking threads.

Expand full comment

Lee--He does seem in need of an adjustment.

Expand full comment

No he just needs to go away. He is an attention ho, but a disruptor, a political evangelist for Trump

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Paul--That is almost all there is left of me, my imagination.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

This fix is in.

Expand full comment

I am hard put to find why the SC would decide not to let the unanimous lower court decision stand. Screwing up Smith's trial is one explanation. Anybody have others?

Expand full comment
founding

No other reason why.

Expand full comment

Cowardice. The other reason is they are afraid of the monster they helped create, the MAGA cultists who will come after them with the guns the SC GQP members allowed to teem on the street.

I say no more taxpayer funded protection for th, let them defend themselves with the guns they love so much.

Expand full comment

Citizens United not an aberrant one-off from this court. Part of a pattern of deeply anti-democratic rulings. Over the past few years I've come to see them as arguably the number 1 threat to our democracy. But then, there are so many.

Expand full comment

Absolutely correct. The GOP has created a monster. And Mitch is just part of that monster. Donald Trump is a monster who loves Putin. Mitch might go down in history as America's Rasputin.

Expand full comment
founding

And yet most Americans don't now know who Rasputin was.

Expand full comment
Feb 29·edited Feb 29

Do you really think it will be a vote? A real vote?

Expand full comment

Hopefully President Biden has a group of people who are looking for ways that the Trump MAGA supporters are trying to rig the November election! Because if he Trump gets back in we are all doomed.

Expand full comment
founding

If not, then why not? Is there something more important?

Expand full comment

"One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter," he said in his floor speech. "So I stand before you today... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate."—Moscow Mitch

Sorry Mitch, that ship has sailed! The time to leave was about 30 years ago; YOU ARE A DISGRACE!

It’s one thing to be an evil, morally bankrupt fool; it’s in your nature, you are a republican, after all.

However, when democracy was in the line and fascism was staring you in the face, instead of meeting the challenge, you collapsed faster than a cheap lounge chair. When the red menace had reared its ugly head, where were you Mitch? That’s right, carrying water for Putin’s puppet.

Your legacy won’t be as the longest serving Republican majority leader; it will be of a spineless, pathetic old man, who enabled a feeble, wicked, narcissistic sociopath.

Oh wait, I’m pretty much describing your entire party. Never mind!…..:)

Expand full comment

Gosh, you have a way with words!

Expand full comment

McConnell and Trump have turned the republican party into a legalized crime syndicate.

The modern republican party was never the people's party to begin with and perfected the use of racial animus to deliver their agenda which, ironically, abused the very voters who supported them (and still do).

Yes, McConnell is currently the worse, and history will not and should not offer him any kindness; however, more robust criminals are waiting in the wings to extend and surpass McConnel's treachery to this country.

Expand full comment

Yes, Rand Paul the wackadoo in a position of power. It is disheartening.

Expand full comment
RemovedFeb 29
Comment removed
Expand full comment

I thank you for naming three things that he said that were insane. It saves me the trouble.

Expand full comment

Deborah, so glad you mentioned “legalized crime syndicate”. It’s occurred to me that next to inherited old money a relatively new type of oligarch has risen to power and it’s just another name for organized but legal crime. When members of the so called mob looked around for new business opportunities, guess what?! Lo and behold there was the US tax base. All those trillions being waisted on the people when it could be utilized to make small men great again (MSMGA). The robber barons of old are still among us in a new form. willing to rape and pillage the whole country in order to wield power over people with their own money. Same mind set—new role as power brokers with the same scruples as a rat, and most of the GOP owes their presence in politics because of this group of uber-wealthy “business men”.

Expand full comment

“McConnell has always put party above America.”

Because ALL political issues are, at their most fundamental level about one thing, and one thing only — MONEY — and because Republicans’ ONLY true priority is looking after the interests of the rich and corporations — who then reward them, in the short term, with campaign cash to get them elected and keep them in office so that they can continue to look after those interests, and in the long term, with extremely lucrative consultancies, lobbying jobs, seats on corporate boards of directors and deals with conservative publishers to write books that they know perfectly well no one will ever read — this has NEVER been about party, or politics, and certainly not principle.

It’s actually about nothing but lining their own pockets, about the aforementioned MONEY, and there are no more vivid poster children for the pocket-lining McConnells, Mitch and his wife, Elaine Chao, who have amassed a fortune well in excess of $50 million on his senator’s salary, and hers as a sometime cabinet secretary.

Call it the Miracle of McConnells’ Creek.

Expand full comment

I wish I could understand why anyone wants or “needs” that much money. It’s not like they would use it to help people who really do need it.

Expand full comment

Joanne-Once upon a time someone told me that it’s the way some men keep score. He who dies with the most money wins.

Expand full comment

It’s sad. And what does that person win? I’m guessing it’s not a place in heaven, if you believe in that.

Expand full comment

Joanne, without getting into a long discussion of psychology, ethics, morality, I think this all has to do with excessive competitiveness, that one has to “win” at something (money, sports, the greenest lawn…)in order to have worth. You’re right, it is sad, very sad. It’s not necessarily evil but, as your questions point out, once our bodies are gone, what remains of us? Does dying with the most money leave the world any better? Did we leave our little piece of the world happier, healthier, friendlier or … ? for having been there?

Expand full comment

Didn't Elizabeth Warren introduce legislation that Congress and their close family members couldn't own and trade stocks? How did that go? Some democratic congress people and their families have also done quite well. Did that pass?

Expand full comment

Nope. Nowhere. I think Warren’s proposed legislation came out around the time several big name Dems and Republicans in both the Senate and the House were found to have big holdings and buy/sell activity. In the Senate, it was former Senator Feinstein and her husband. Too many own too much and almost none have blind trusts. Even my own Democratic Congresswoman, who I agree with 95% of the time has close and deep family (and therefore financial) ties to Huge Tech. I can’t get her to co-sponsor H. J. RES. 54

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights protected and extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only. (Attempt to undefine corporations as persons)

Expand full comment

Michael, given the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling and the evangelical’s belief of life beginning at conception, we may need to define “person”, as well.

Expand full comment

I did not like the things that Sen. McConnell did during his time in the Senate. I really hated the fact that he tried to prevent President Obama from selecting judges and promising he would only be a one term president which did NOT go as he planned. The way he tried to prevent everything President Obama attempted showed me his racism and his hatred over the fact that a black man was elected to be president. Obamacare is still going strong and is still very popular. I hated the fact that he wouldn't even attempt to help people from his own state who suffered from black lung disease. He was basically telling them he didn't care and had no concern to help them. History will not be kind to Mitch McConnell but then if trump gets back in the White House, children will learn an alternative history and all republicans will be revered. Anyone trying to tell children the truth will be imprisoned!! Moscow Mitch would probably like that. Vote Blue, America!!!

Expand full comment

McConnell seems to occupy the same space as William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Mike Pence. Awful Republicans who yet failed to completely yield to Der Trumpler's absolute rule. Of course, Turtleface was far more damaging to our nation than the other three. McConnell may enter history as a contemporary John Calhoun, a man whose defense of slavery and nullification of federalism helped precipitate what may become to be known as The First Civil War.

Expand full comment

i ain't spilling NO TEARS here for moscow mitch ... he single-handedly could have swerved the needle by doing the honest thing : to convict the insurrectionist-in-chief after 6 january in the second impeachment trial ... then we would NOT be in the absolute mess that we are in now, with his own diabolical supreme court revealing to the whole world that the "shining city on a hill" is really the ultimate "shithole country" ... do us a favor, & step down before the end of your grim wreaping term, bitch mc connell ...

Expand full comment

McConnell is single most destructive person in history to American Democracy, champion of the super-rich, GOP donations-at-any-cost, and Russian transnational organised crime puppet (FBI report)

He would burn America to the ground to keep his power.

Expand full comment

sadly he isnt going anywhere. he may be stepping down as the minority leader (in 9 months), but he is still going to stay the senator of kentucky. (where he will continue to keep his state at the bottom , as he has for 40 years!)

Expand full comment

Tyrants, theocratic, authoritarian, dictator - all relevant social disorders very normal in the GOP... Narcissist, psychopath, sociopath - all relevant pathologization of "effective" capitalistic behavior MAGA embodies... this country is declining rapidly with our current education level.

Your average citizen is to caught up in social manipulation to SEE the threat - they ONLY see the threats created for them 🤦🏽‍♂️😏

Expand full comment

Thanks for this summary of what Mitch McConnell did against the wellbeing, health, and safety of the people he nominally represents.

McConnell's failure to vote to convict Trump on either of his impeachments, and his failure to lead the Senate to do the same, will surely stand as his most heinous actions-- a horrendous legacy for perhaps generations.

Expand full comment

Mitch Mc Connell is a honest “politician

Once he was bought by the big Republican money Koch he stayed bought, trumpet 🎺 placed his second wife 30 years younger second trophy 🏆 wife as Secretary of Labor. Bush

Made her Secretary of Office of Personnel management. She had no expertise other than being the Wife of Mitch McConnell Connell leader of the republican in Congress…

This is a case of where term limits would have cured the problem.

Expand full comment

cocaine elaine is 70 and was trumps transportation secretary. she was also Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush and Deputy Secretary of Transportation under George H. W. Bush. now we have the strange drowning accident of her sister who was the head of the families shipping business . and there have been no details . AMEN to term limits. but lets first impeach the manchurian candidates on the bench right now.

Expand full comment

Further, Elaine Chao's family has one of the largest shipping businesses out of China. If you think illegal drugs in the US of A is not run out of Richy Rich and the Corporations, you do not understand how much money is in 'the business' of destroying America every and any way possible.

Expand full comment

Would not doubt that at all after all there is precedent Ruzzo, a friend of Richard Nixon’s ran a bank in Miami that basically laundered all the money for the drug cartels that Nixon War on Drugs help to drive up the prices in the profit margins, and the amount of money for home through the Miami banks to be laundered.

Chinese are no slouches and figuring out ways to make money whether it’s legal or illegal or modifying dog food so it passes the protein test but kills the dogs etc.

Expand full comment

The general rule is anything for a buck, and if it’s immoral, it just cost more. McConnell‘s heart is black and it’s not from coal dust it’s from mold, mold. The old politicians are hard to kill off thank God for strokes.

I believe if Biden gets elected which is pretty good chance that he will resign after a year or two with the proviso that they should limit the age of president to 70 not mid 70s . 70…

Expand full comment
founding

And created other problems.

Expand full comment

Every action has a reaction but at this point feeble is not a good idea, and changing horses in the middle of a stream is not a good idea 👍…

So a post election Change in the law to change the qualifications for president .

Lifetime ban for MAGA fanatics seems like a good idea with no presidential pardons…

Expand full comment