It’s a pretty reasonable request:
Mitch McConnell's Senate challenger, Democrat and retired Marine Lt. Col. Amy McGrath, is calling on the incumbent Kentucky senator to get tested for COVID-19 and release the results of that test.
McGrath is also calling on him to get tested once a week, and release the results of those tests while he continues to have contact with Kentuckians.
McConnell met with Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett shortly after her nomination by President Trump. At least seven known coronavirus cases have emerged from the announcement of Judge Barrett's nomination, which took place a few days prior.
And someone sounded a little cranky:
“I’m unaware where Amy McGrath went to medical school, but I take my health care advice from my doctor, not my political opponent. At the end of the campaign season, it’s imperative for all of us to tune out erratic and uninformed campaign rhetoric and make health care decisions for ourselves based on CDC guidance and our health care professionals,” McConnell said in a statement.
McGrath called the longtime senator “irresponsible” for not telling the public whether he has recently tested or not.
“We are in the brink of a constitutional crisis, with our president and members of Congress now infected with a potentially deadly disease, and McConnell still isn’t taking this seriously,” said McGrath. “We are scheduled to take the stage together for a debate in a week, and he must get tested and release the results the day of the debate at the very least. It is just basic respect to those working to get this debate done safely.”
By the way, he’s really looking pathetic:
By the way, McGrath called out McConnell on this:
McGrath also criticized McConnell after President Trump tweeted he would delay negotiations on an additional coronavirus relief bill until after the election, writing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi negotiated in bad faith.
"...And quitting on the very aid that almost everybody says we need right now, including himself. How do you justify that Senator McConnell?" McGrath said.
Senator McConnell appeared on Fox News Tuesday night, where he said he believes another recovery bill is needed, but he does not believe Democrats want to reach a deal soon.
Yes, McConnell is blame for this:
“Nancy Pelosi is asking for $2.4 Trillion Dollars to bailout poorly run, high crime, Democrat States, money that is in no way related to COVID-19,” Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “We made a very generous offer of $1.6 Trillion Dollars and, as usual, she is not negotiating in good faith. I am rejecting their request, and looking to the future of our Country. I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business.”
Mitch McConnell probably did not want the president to claim sole responsibility for the breakdown of stimulus talks. But according to the Washington Post, the Senate majority leader did advise Trump that “Pelosi was stringing him along and no deal she cut with Mnuchin would command broad GOP support to pass in the Senate.”
Which looks bizarre, on first glance. McConnell’s majority is living on a knife’s edge: In recent days, FiveThirtyEight declared Democrats the two-to-one favorites to control the Senate next year. The GOP still has a solid shot of retaining the chamber, but doing so will require most of its embattled incumbents (in South Carolina, North Carolina, Maine, Iowa, Colorado, and Arizona) to keep their seats. And many of those incumbents were eager to vote for a stimulus package that could shore up their bipartisan bona fides. McConnell may not value his constituents’ well-being or the health of our democracy. But he does seem to value his own power. So with his president and his majority on life support, why would he walk away from a chance to get $1,200 checks mailed to most Americans by Election Day?
By the way, I’m liking what Jack Holmes at Esquire is saying:
The question is whether the president is just whacked out or whether Mitch McConnell has gotten in his ear and convinced him to self-immolate. After all, Trump's tweet setting some TNT under the stimulus negotiations specifically mentioned the Senate should shift priorities to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Since packing the judiciary with judges who will advance conservative priorities from the bench—including, most importantly, the entrenchment of corporate power and the voter suppression policies that allow Republicans to win elections with a non-majoritarian coalition—is McConnell's main bag, this seems right up his alley.
It is not in Trump's interests, however. The president needs a stimulus bill to juice up the economy before the election, yet he didn't just scrap it, he broadcast to the world that he should be to blame. It's like he doesn't even want to win—or as if McConnell thinks he is destined to lose, and wants to get his judge while allowing the economy to deteriorate further ahead of a Democratic administration. In this scenario, Joe Biden could enter office—assuming the coming election is free and fair—with an even bigger task ahead of him. Even if he's got a Senate majority that will pass his proposals, which include a $2 trillion infrastructure and clean energy plan, there could be a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court waiting to strike it all down on the basis of "textualism," or "originalism," or whatever other horse shit the conservative activists on the bench are serving up today.
This was a problem in the early New Deal era, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded, in part, by threatening to pack the Court. He failed to do so, but the Court stopped striking down his stuff. Biden has expressed reluctance to get into that game, but he might not have a choice if he wants to avoid a failed presidency. It may come down to escalationism or defeat. And speaking of escalations, Biden should start ramping up the scale of his stimulus plans if McConnell continues to act outside the public interest and forgo the kind of action necessary to instigate a broad-based recovery from the pandemic downturn that includes working class people. $2 trillion should become three or four.
By the way, Moscow Mitch has been getting really triggered about this:
Top Republican Mitch McConnell lashed out on Wednesday at reports about Amy Coney Barrett’s background in a strict religious group which the Senate majority leader claimed “demean the [supreme court] confirmation process, disrespect the constitution and insult millions of American believers”.
Among McConnell’s targets was a Guardian report which said Barrett “lived in the home of one of the founders of the People of Praise while she was a law student, raising new questions about the supreme court nominee’s involvement with the secretive Christian faith group that has been criticized for dominating the lives of its members and subjugating women”.
Barrett is an Indiana-based appeals court judge whose strict Catholic views are the subject of concern among progressives, particularly over the fate of Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court ruling which made abortion legal across the US.
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