Mitch McConnell is a scum bag

August 30, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell: The epitome of corruption  

uh oh...What will Donald Trump say?

Here's a monumental laugh: Mitch McConnell to Supreme Court: We won’t let Dems 'pack the court,' said, no doubt, with a straight face. This slimeball appears to be almost as out of touch with reality as Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell has done more to destroy the U.S. Congress than all of the other members combined. His mission is to block anything the left proposes, no matter the value or urgency. Election security bills and gun control legislation most recently.

Here's the scenario...

"McConnell blocked President Barack Obama from filling a vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, then confirmed President Donald Trump’s replacement Neil Gorsuch a year later after eliminating the filibuster for the Supreme Court nominees."

There's more...

"Last year, McConnell pushed through the controversial confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who faced allegations of sexual assault. Kavanaugh is widely viewed as more conservative than his predecessor, Anthony Kennedy. McConnell has also said he would consider filling any vacancies ahead of the 2020 election as well, despite having blocked Obama’s pick in an election year."

Bernie Sanders Goes After Mitch McConnell on His Home Turf...

 He has been called Moscow Mitch and a Russian asset, both of which are appropriate for someone who has made sure the 2020 election is wide open to Soviet hacking due to the lack of new protection laws that he opposed. With any luck at all, McConnell will lose his seat in Kentucky. We can then wipe this most dismal of experiences clean with a Democratic majority in the Senate and be rid of perhaps the most corrupt politician that has ever come to Washington.

And to further encourage Russian meddling in the 2020 elections, McConnell has delayed filling seats on the Federal Election Commission...

"The Federal Election Commission (FEC) — intended to be a group of no more than three Democrats and no more than three Republicans overseeing the federal campaign finance system — has been operating with just a bare quorum of four for the past 18 months. With the resignation of Vice Chairman Matthew Petersen, at the end of the week, the commission will be virtually paralyzed."

The FEC has two important functions that are sorely needed, especially with Donald Trump in the White House: auditing campaign filings, and investigating corruption. With just three active members, it will be able to do none of that. Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast said: "For the Sake of Our Democracy, We Must Ditch Mitch McConnell"...

What to do? All roads lead to Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, who won’t allow debate on remedies for gun violence and refuses to take up gun-control legislation passed by the House to expand background checks.

Can Amy McGrath unseat Mitch McConnell...

He was heckled recently on home turf at a church picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, where he was called, "Moscow Mitch," "Murder Turtle," and "Massacre Mitch." As with Donald Trump, the more the screws are turned, the more McConnell climbs the walls. Here's an example of Mitch McConnell supporters that seem to closely mirror those of Donald Trump...

"At Team Mitch, it's been business as usual. Just hours after the El Paso shooting, the campaign tweeted a photo of a single tombstone bearing the name of McConnell’s Democratic challenger. Another tweet shows seven grinning young white men in “Team Mitch” T-shirts pawing a cardboard cutout of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez with the caption, 'break me off a piece of that.'”

This prompts repeating, " The dregs of humanity: Mitch McConnell."

You can read several of my posts on McConnell here.

Dominant factor in 2020 election could be racism

August 29, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

How Donald Trump is suffering for 2020  

Donald Trump's anti-black supporters

Anti-black voters were an important asset to the Donald Trump campaign in 2016, as he encouraged racism, something that has been centerpiece since winning the White House. Without these voters T-rump could be in trouble as a new wave sweeps the U.S. voting public...

"According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 82 percent of people who reject anti-black ideas said they were strongly interested in voting, up from 70 percent in 2016. In comparison, 75 percent of anti-black voters expressed a strong interest in voting in 2020."

Donald Trump is a confirmed racist, which is replayed weekly, sometime on a daily basis. Just recently he was criticized...

"for racist tweets he sent telling four lawmakers of color — Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — to 'go back' to the 'corrupt' countries they’re from. Shortly after, his supporters chanted 'send her back' as Trump attacked Omar during a rally in North Carolina."

The racism thing seemed to take a backseat during the Obama administration, but reared its ugly head with a roar when the Oval Office lunatic was elected. And it has made the left think about their vote and certain values for the upcoming election. I did two recent posts documenting the appalling incidents of racism occurring around this country you can see here and here. It is the blatant display of this racism since Trump came along that is so troublesome.

How farmers feel about Donald Trump...

There is another angle on Donald Trump's loss of followers for 2020, the farmers of the U.S. who solidly supported him in 2016, but who are now "reeling from plunging prices and unsold crops during what is now more than a year-long trade war with China." And then most recently T-rump made the decision to allow more oil refiners to skirt biofuel laws and use less corn-based ethanol. At recent campaign stops Joe Biden has said the trade war was “crushing” American farmers.

There's more...

"A round of more bad news for farmers last week, including extra tariffs Beijing announced on soybeans and other key U.S. agricultural exports, gave Democrats a fresh opening to attack Trump. He gave regulators the green light to grant exemptions to more than 30 small refineries so they can use less ethanol, Democratic candidates pounced on it as evidence Trump favors the oil industry."

5 top Democrats would beat Donald Trump today...

Donald dufus appears to be searching seriously for ways to lose the 2020 election with his bizarre actions that seem to be really pissing off American voters. And based on some recent figures, it definitely isn't the time to screw around with voters. Just recently AlterNet accused Trump of lying again about his approval numbers with Republicans. But his is how it really is...

"He says that he has 94 percent approval with them, and at one point, he actually did poll that well. But recent surveys from Monmouth, Zogby Analytics, AP-NORC, and Fox News all show him polling significantly lower than that. It appears that his support has been slipping and is now somewhere in the low-to-mid eighties."

There's more...

"The above might still sound impressive, but his approval with Democrats is in the low single digits, and he’s polling in the thirties-to-low forties with independents. He actually needs to be doing better with his base to compensate for this."

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast comments...

"If Trump were telling the truth about having 94 percent support from the GOP base, he’d be in reasonable shape, although Romney lost pretty badly at 93 percent."

How many U.S. presidents have actually lied themselves through a reelection? 

Let's use the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump

August 28, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Has Alzheimer's raised its ugly head in the White House?  

The 25th Amendment...

"allows for the removal of a president if the vice president and a majority of Cabinet secretaries agree in writing that the commander in chief is 'unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.'”

Both George Conway and Anthony Scaramucci think the 25th should be used to take down a mentally unfit Donald Trump. Scaramucci commented...

“I don't understand how elected public servants of the longest-standing Republican democracy in existing world history, a 243-year-old Republican democracy could have this sort of full-blown insanity on display and not act.”

Think what you might about Trump's former White House communications director, and George Conway, for that matter, but each is turning some very important screws into T-rump's hide that psychiatrists say could help bring about his meltdown. CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says...

“I’m not nearly smart enough to know what is going on inside of Anthony Scaramucci’s brain, but I do know he’s not an elected official, and what will matter is when Republican elected officials who are running for re-election start criticizing the president,” said Toobin. “Because that is going to indicate that they believe the Republican Party is moving away from him.”

Donald Trump is a lunatic...

 “Jeff Flake and Bob Corker are senators who criticized the president. The only Republican running for re-election who has gone on record saying he opposes the president is Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan — and he became an independent last month. Paul Krugman regularly criticizes Donald Trump along with the Republican Party tweeting recently...

“it’s not clear whether Trump is getting any crazier. It’s just that events have stopped accommodating his madness.”

But that could end soon with the economy slipping prompting this Krugman comment...

"I mean, no recession yet, no major market plunge, just a modest slowdown (so far) — he’s disintegrating before our eyes. And the closest thing we have to a grownup on the scene is the Lego Batman guy [Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin].”

 God help us if Mnuchin is it. Krugman continues...

“Again, not clear whether Trump is any crazier than he was; maybe he’s deteriorating, but is calling Powell an enemy notably worse than the stuff about crowd sizes at his inaugural and refusing to admit he lost the popular vote?”

Trump is now being compared with Ronald Reagan and his onset of Alzheimer's that was covered up by the White House. It was MSNBC legal analyst Maya Wiley who said...

"she is no doctor, but that there are signs of the president’s decline that reminded her of how Ronald Reagan’s White House hid his Alzheimer’s from the public."

One of our family went through a parent suffering with the disease and said that Trump's actions now are very similar to her mother. Tragic, but this must be addressed immediately. 

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL RETRACTED THIS STORY: Unconfirmed report:Russian billionaires backed Donald Trump Deutsche Bank loans

August 28, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Will Deutsche Bank finally impeach Donald Trump?  

Maddow-Trump-O'Donnell...The Interview

Controversial MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell qualified right up front that his story re. Donald Trump's Deutsche Bank loans were co-signed by Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin had only one source and needed further confirmation. But additional information from Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and tax expert David Cay Johnston sheds more light on a story that promises to be quite interesting, if not explosive. Here's the scenario...

O'Donnell, appearing on the network Tuesday night with host Rachel Maddow, said that "this single source close to Deutsche Bank has told me that the Trump — Donald Trump's loan documents there show that he has co-signers. That's how he was able to obtain those loans. And that the co-signers are Russian oligarchs."

O'Donnell added...

"If true, that would explain every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin."

But what is more interesting is David Cay Johnston's take on the issue...

“If Deutsche Bank has Donald Trump’s tax returns, isn’t the only purpose for a bank to have tax returns is for loans?” O’Donnell asked. “Is there — I can’t think of any other reason why the bank would have his tax returns.”

Deutsche Bank wants to turn over Trump tax returns to House...

O'Donnell spars back and forth with Johnson on Trump's investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives, which is seeking information from Deutsche Bank in a Russian money-laundering investigation. O'Donnell followed...

“If those loan documents show co-signers, let’s just go to that, your understanding of Donald Trump’s finances by the time he’s trying to get loans from Deutsche Bank after every other bank has turned him down. Would it make sense that he needs co-signers at that point?”

Johnson replied, "Oh, absolutely."

O'Donnell then wants to know why Trump would pursue a loan with Russian co-signers?...

“Well, it would be the best place for him to go and it fits with the family’s own public statements — that they’ve tried to walk back since — about getting lots of assets from Russia.”

But, as the TV commercials say, 'Wait, there's more'...

"Donald may well have other backers. The next places to look would be the Saudis, the Emiratis and perhaps some people in Turkey, given Michael Flynn, his National Security Adviser, having been on the payroll illegally of Turkish interests when he was in the White House.”

Lawrence O'Donnell's statement on Trump Russian-backed loans...

Donald Trump's obsession with money seems endless, and with no ethical parameters whatsoever. Bob Brigham of RawStory reports...

"Fast-tracked impeachment hearings will occur this fall if the bombshell report is true that President Donald Trump had loans with Deutsche Bank co-signed by Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin."

Does anyone else agree that now we have come full circle with the Mueller Report detailing investigations of Russian interference with the 2016 elections? Stemming from those hearings were other accusations of Trump family improprieties with Russia featuring Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. However, although the source for Lawrence O'Donnell is close to Deutsche Bank, nothing is final in this story until additional sources come forward. We can only hope.

Hello Congress-Gun control-Remember?

August 28, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Republicans shirk gun control, thus, killing innocent people 

NRA/Gun worshippers

A vacuum is defined as a space in which there is no matter, and that is where the gun control movement stands today...in a vacuum. And we can thank Republicans for leading the battle against responsible gun laws. Innocent lives don't matter to these gun nuts, their weapons are sacrosanct over the killing of innocent Americans. Max Boot of The Washington Post asks, "What the hell is wrong with us?" He expounds...

"Less than a month after a white supremacist allegedly killed 51 people in Christchurch on March 15, New Zealand’s Parliament voted, 119 to 1, to make the possession of assault weapons illegal. Gun owners have until the end of September to turn in their weapons as part of a buyback program or face five years in prison. More than 10,000 firearms have already been turned in."

Let's do some math. New Zealand's population is 4,885,300, the U.S. 329 million, 66 times larger. If 10,000 guns were turned in in New Zealand, might we expect to get 660,000 guns off the streets of the U.S. And that's only a drop in the bucket of the 393 million guns spread out over this country. Not even sure if it would help and am very skeptical over America's gun huggers turning over their cherished weaponry. Max Boot continues...

"By contrast, at least 59 people have been killed in mass shootings this year (and more than 9,000 in other shootings, not counting suicides) and yet we are no closer to banning assault-style weapons. These were the weapons of choice of mass murderers in Newtown, Conn.; Aurora, Colo.; San Bernardino, Calif.; Sutherland Springs, Tex.; Las Vegas; Parkland, Fla.; Pittsburgh; Poway, Calif.; El Paso; and Dayton, Ohio."

Trump pulls the trigger in gun violence...

Although 70% of voters and 54 percent of Republicans support banning these weapons of war, T-rump claims there is no “political appetite” for such action. He wouldn't because the NRA's head gun nut wouldn't let him. But not all Republicans are for gun rights. "Suburban women in some swing House districts overwhelmingly want tighter gun laws," says Ella Nilsen of Vox. And the cry for background checks comes from 90% of U.S. citizens.

"Fox News host Steve Hilton is blasting National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre, calling him "an odious little grifter" who needs to be shown the door," reports The Hill. Three board members and three top attorneys have recently resigned from the National Rifle Assn. (NRA). Not too long ago, Dick's Sporting Goods removed guns from all their stores and reports now their sales are climbing. Guns do kill and as we slowly get rid of them, the U.S, will be a better place to live in.

Elizabeth Warren looking good in the polls

August 27, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Why is Elizabeth Warren moving up in the polls?  

Elizabeth Warren 2020

The question would have been moot a week or two earlier when Joe Biden looked like a sure thing. Apparently a few gaffes and a couple of misstatements have convinced some of the left that he may not be the right candidate. Monday's Monmouth University poll revealed surprising results...

"It found a virtual three-way tie among Biden at 19% and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who each had 20%."

However, the "Real Clear Politics’ aggregation of polls still shows Biden well ahead, at 28.8%, followed by Sanders at 16% and Warren at 15.4%." If we are to believe Monmouth, and it is a credible pollster, then might we expect the same trend to begin in other polls? Jennifer Rubin, a conservative writer for The Washington Post says, "There’s a reason Elizabeth Warren is surging," and that is because she is appealing to "ordinary" Americans.

We know there are a lot of ordinary Americans out there that have had absolutely no voice since Donald Trump entered the White House. And my guess is that there are many ordinary Americans supporting T-rump that must be having second thoughts now. Not the core, but the fringe. Rubin comments...

"she’s not telling exactly the same story as she did earlier. Using family stories she has gotten 'looser' and funnier. She interacts with the crowd more. She has less anger, more determination and more confidence. She is high-energy."

Elizabeth Warren gaining momentum...

But, it would appear that the voting public still favors a candidate who can win over one who is heated in the issues, for example, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And it is interesting to note here that even after all the rhetoric, talk of being a socialist, and losing the primary to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Bernie Sanders is yet able to hold on to the second position in the 2020 Democratic Primary. I still say a Sanders/Warren ticket would be dynamite.

For some reason, the media is now beginning to focus on a two-way race between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, With Biden's recent gaffes and misstatements, he could easily lose the edge, and Bernie is still suffering over his age, which I find ludicrous. Here's the current scenario...

"She [Warren] drew an estimated 15,000 people to a rally in Seattle after holding an event nearly as large in Minneapolis last week. Biden spent the weekend talking to small gatherings in New Hampshire and Iowa. This led to a new meme: the rock star versus the rock."

Here are some more of the latest...

"Warren is doing better than Sanders in Iowa but the reverse is the case in New Hampshire. The most recent polls out of South Carolina show Warren and Sanders essentially tied in a distant fight for second place that might not even give either of them any delegates at all, and the two most recent polls out of Nevada disagree about which of them is doing better."

I still have a hankering to see a Bernie Sanders surge that takes him to the top capped off by winning the primary. But I am not naive, the primary thrust of the left in 2020 is beating Donald Trump. And there is still a year to go.  

The dictator in Donald Trump has become rampant

August 27, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Donald Trump doesn’t actually do anything, but he dominates everything. 

The chosen one

The headline, above, perfectly encapsulates the first two years of the Donald Trump administration in the White House. Isn't this tragic when you are talking about running the most powerful country in the world? Most other countries wonder, along with many Americans, how could the United States elect an egomaniac like Donald Trump to the presidency? Easy, when you consider the number of double-digits out there who are unable to think for themselves.

Lucian K. Truscott of Salon coined the above phrase, "He [Trump] doesn’t actually do anything, but he dominates everything." He adds this...

"Another week of shaking our heads and wondering how much longer we can survive him. Yet again, Donald Trump overwhelmed practically everything with the force of his obscene personality, running his mouth and his thumbs even while he was failing to run the country in any sort of conventional sense."

There's more...

"Living in America today is like being trapped in a room with him — no doors, no windows, no exits, only Trump and the sound of Trump and the hideous image of Trump, all day, every day, for day after day after day."

A dictator admires a dictator...

My wife and I sit down to the dinner where we usually discuss at least some politics. I tell her what I have found that day on the Internet about T-rump, and after a couple of these comments she just shakes her head, because, according to her, what else could you possibly say after hearing this for two years. A frustrated Neil Young, discussing modern music in the New York Times Magazine said, “I’ve got great melodies, and the words are all profanities.”

That's the age of Donald Trump...

"Our senses dictate how we experience the world — our hearing and sight and touch and smell, even the ineffable stuff like intuition and belief. But when our senses are overwhelmed by someone like Trump, when our lives seem filled with a man who does nothing but endlessly tweet and lie and hate, it kills us inside. Trump is killing us."

The dictator surfaces in Trump's ordering of U.S. companies to pull out of China and not do business with them. Whether he carries through on this order or not, he has cited the IEEPA law to support his threat. We are living in a dictatorship with the loose guidelines of a maniac who has no idea what he is doing but thinks that everything he does is right. And that is so frightening that every sane person in this country will lose sleep until Donald Trump is gone.

Donald dufus says, 'I am the chosen one'...

Here's a digest of Trump's recent comical but freakish moves...

"Trump announced that signs of an economic downturn were the results of a 'conspiracy' against him personally."

"Trump accused Jews who decide to vote for Democrats as being guilty of 'great disloyalty.'”

"Trump held a completely unhinged press 'gaggle' on the lawn of the White House during which he referred to himself as 'the chosen one.'”

"He hurled insults at the prime minister of Denmark because she wouldn’t sell him the island of Greenland."

"He joked about still being in office 10 to 14 years from now, an apparent attack on the 25th Amendment, suggested overturning the right of birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, but assured his gun-totin’ base that 'our Second Amendment will remain strong.'”

Well, you get the idea. The question is, what bizarre things can we expect from Donald Trump this week?