Mitch McConnell: Guardian of the Trough

1/8/2020

Listen to Iris Dement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqDpL0YCvI

Now that our Dear Leader is back on his meds, the United States is in the hands of Mitch McConnell.
Yikes.

This was the conclusion in the past day as we realized the world was not in smoldering ruins, not yet, from an impulsive drive-by shooting ordered by the Dear Leader.

The twitchy fingers of Twitter America have produced a theory that somebody had fed him doggie downers or whatever it took to leave Donald Trump slurring as he mechanically tried to read what his handlers had written for him. Not a pretty sight, but better than more rabid postures he takes.

Meantime, the nation is back in the hands of the same friendly feller who kidnapped the Supreme Court candidacy of Judge Merrick B. Garland and committed other acts of contempt toward democracy.

I don’t need to go through the scenarios of the impeachment frolics. We’ve got time to talk about it while Nancy Pelosi – the smartest person in the room – is making the Dear Leader twist.

But I, who lived in Kentucky as a Times reporter for a few years and returned often, have my own take on Mitch. I have told this story before. Short version: I covered a statewide election in Kentucky and the winning candidate – I have no memory which one or which party – celebrated that night at headquarters by proclaiming:
“They’ve had their turn at the trough; now it’s our turn.”

Ever since then, I retain the image of one porker or another making the most of his chance – no concern for others.

Millions of Americans would not have health care, however imperfect, if John McCain had not pointed his thumb downward on that historic midnight. Mitch would be fine with disregarding the needs of the poor in the cities and hollers of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

He also shows his contempt for others by championing the dying industry of coal mining, which I covered years ago. He doesn’t care how badly King Coal pollutes the land and the air – or that it is is only a sliver of Kentucky’s economy. His turn at the trough.

McConnell’s posture is even more negative considering that he broke into politics as an aide to Sen. John Sherman Cooper, a Republican – I guess you’d say an old-style Republican. Cooper was worldly and collegial. I covered his announcement that he would not run again in 1972. Maybe I met McConnell that day; I do remember the gravitas of John Sherman Cooper.

I think of Cooper and others these days during the scrimmage for the House-to-Senate impeachment.
I remember when Democrats like Sam Ervin and Republicans like Howard Baker were able to work together in the Watergate scandal that doomed Richard M. Nixon.

It seems clear to me – from the impulsive assassination ordered by Trump to the lies from Trump’s toadies, angering even a Republican stalwart like Mike Lee of Utah – that the United States needs Trump dismissed.

Mitch McConnell is trying to block it. I don’t know what McConnell gains from a defective president like Trump. But it’s still Mitch’s turn at the trough, and that may be all that matters to him.
* * *
Here is Gail Collins today, on McConnell. (I have delayed my pleasure in reading Collins until after I file my little screed, which was already in the works.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/opinion/mitch-mcconnell-trump.html

john mcdermott

1/9/2020 10:02:46 am

Yertle the Senator. A man of no discernible humanity, motivated only by the retention of his own position of power and privilege. The chief enabler of a President unqualified for the job, a self-serving narcissist absolutely devoid of empathy or interest in anything that does not personally benefit him.

Hansen Alexander

1/9/2020 11:27:12 am

Good piece, George, and thanks for including the quote with the operative word "trough" to illustrate what McConnell is all about. He has admitted that his obsession with destroying campaign contribution limits from the oligarchs that lead to that dreadful Supreme Court, Citizens United, was the fact that he couldn't win state wide election in Kentucky "without buying it."

Your rift is a reminder of how much you, George Vecsey, care about people, and Mitch McConnell doesn't.

Of course, the wacky melodrama between McConnell and Pelosi on impeachment is about optics and whether the GOP can continue to cover up main witnesses from either explaining the Mueller Report or the Ukrainian shake down.

What Trump has ordered Mitch to prevent with his life is allowing John Bolton, Rudolph Giuliani, Mick Mulvaney (and if Obstruction of Justice is added to the articles) former White House Counsel Don McCann, testifying like four John Deans in prime day time television, speaking in plain English about the nitty gritty of those 10 incidents of Obstruction of Justice in the Russian Army intelligence probe and the withholding of already voted congressional funds and a White House summit until Ukraine's Zelensky made a public announcement of an investigation of Joe Biden's son.

Mitch is obviously tired of Trump's three hour telephone tirades, venting against the "unfair" consequences of his own actions, but scared, oh so scared, of the angry mob Trump has riled up who cheer on the Fuhrer of Fifth Avenue as if he were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid escaping federal authorities.

In short, you've hit Mitch where he lives, on a tawdry runaway money train.

bruce

1/9/2020 12:00:29 pm

george,

pretty hard to dispute anything you've written--unless thinking is something other people do.

my thought about pelosi's play was that she thought making the monster in chief wait would unhinge him even more than usual especially if something of consequence slimed to the surface.

and god knows what he'd say or do; tho i guess it's a bit clearer now.

as for slurring....his sniffing became a little more obvious too.

perhaps it's the Pinocchio syndrome in effect.

bruce

Ed Martin

1/9/2020 06:15:44 pm

It is difficult to add any value to what you, George, Hanson and BRUCE have said. Here is a minicosm. Folks at a local golf club, most educated at the college level, support trump, indifferent to any faults. They are wealthy enough to appreciate tax cuts, the market is up. They are not interested,in food or shelter for others, not even interested in the weakening of environmental rules that protect the water and air, or national wildlife, parks etc. (They might feel there are too many regulations). Some became wealthy working in industries favored by trump. In short, they, like Mitch are feeding at the trough. (interestingly, our local Republican leaders here are overweight, prompting me to refer people to Animal Farm for parallels.

In addition to self concern and lack of economic empathy there are also bigots, racial and religious, encouraged by trumpery.

As a former sports writer wrote, “you could look it up” or as Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “So it goes.”

George Vecsey

1/9/2020 06:49:07 pm

Iris Dement wrote this in 1996:Rings true to me:

Living in the wasteland of the free

[Verse 1]
We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
And their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
But they don't look like Jesus to me
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
But that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
But they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
And If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
To some third-world country across the sea
And it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free....

(rest of lyrics below; or listen to Iris on line):

https://genius.com/Iris-dement-wasteland-of-the-free-lyrics

Ed Martin

1/9/2020 07:25:42 pm

Thumbs up!

bruce

1/9/2020 07:28:39 pm

george,

good post.

always strikes me that any tom, dick or harriet can call themselves preachers or parsons....

not sure it's as easy here in the great white north.

have a tendency in the usa, it seems to me, to be for the overdog which doesn't seem very christian like.

bruce

Randolph

1/9/2020 09:49:22 pm

George,
You nailed it my brother. You are correct, Moscow Mitch is feeding at the trough.
I also agree with Ed. The Trump phenomenon has opened my eyes to the number of people around me who are only interested in maintaining their place at the trough. Selfishness and greed are ruling the day.
Yet at the dimming of this day, I am glad that you are speaking up and that there are other humans in this big old goofy world that are driven by compassion and kindness.
RF

PS Yes I love Iris.........

bruce

1/9/2020 10:03:18 pm

randolph,

something that never ceases to surprise me is how often i hear/read is--when talking about a real national health care plan--why should i have to pay if somebody else is sick/smokes/an alcoholic/drug addict?'.....oddly enough, i never hear anybody saying they don't want to pay for somebody who is morbidly obese.

bruce

Andy Tansey

1/19/2020 10:43:03 am

Never much for politics, I have wondered about disavowing my decision to register as a republican at the time the only primaries that mattered when I bought a home in Nassau County were for that party. Now, perhaps, it will come in handy. I'll write all the republican senators. This is a time when we need to find our voices, and I am grateful for the opportunity that George provides, though I fear that I preach to the choir.

- Preacher Andy

Re: The Highest Values vs. Party Loyalty

Dear Senator _:
In the impeachment trial, you will be charged with making decisions likely to pit party loyalty versus the highest human values. In any hierarchy of values, none is more essential than truth. The Constitution justifies our nation as one formed based on these ideals, and even the Declaration of Independence has as an unquestionable premise: “We hold these TRUTHS to be self-evident . . . .” A Senator is responsible not only to constituents or supporters, but more so for leadership, exercising independent judgment in favor of right versus wrong, even if it means acting differently from how his or her party crafts its version of the narrative.
I am a registered Republican, and I hold values to which the Republican Party has historically adhered, including the right to life and, until recently, fiscal prudence. I trust that you will be guided by your conscience and act, when called to do so, with personal integrity and loyalty to Truth, putting aside the petty politics of Republicans versus Democrats. If so, history will admire you. Please help restore this nation to justification as the one most dedicated to the pursuit of the highest of values, especially the Truth at this time.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Mitch McConnell: Guardian of the Trough

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