You Should Be Angry. The Republican party did this. All of it.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
You Should Be Angry.
The Republican party did this. All of it.
Before we get started: Shortly after I finished writing today’s newsletter, Josh Hawley announced that he is going to buck Mitch McConnell and join House Republicans to force a roll-call vote on whether or not to accept the Electoral College votes.
This was completely predictable—I’ve literally been telling anyone who would listen that this was where we were headed since forking October . And Hawley coming out this far in advance makes it likely that he’ll be joined in his objection by at least Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz and probably a few others.
Which only sets up the next loyalty test: Actually voting to reject the Electoral College votes.
That, my friends, is the future of the Republican party. Loyalty tests, all the way down. And while you can probably be a senator from a “safe” state and get along by mumbling about how “we have to move on” or “we’ll never really know who won 2020,” to have any future in national Republican politics, you will have to have voted to overturn the election on January 6.
Think about that: The price of admission for advancement in Republican politics is now participating in an attempt to overthrow a free and fair election.
Donald Trump was defeated but the danger has not passed. Stand up to Josh Hawley. Stand up for America.
Mitch McConnell has taken it upon himself to kill the bill that would up the $600 stimulus payments to $2,000. Because Republicans are very concerned about fiscal responsibility again.
The good-faith argument against $2,000 checks is that it’s a blunt instrument for a more surgical problem. There are tens of millions of households which desperately need that stimulus through no fault of their own. The federal government mismanaged this pandemic from the start, and the consequences of its failures have been mass death and devastation for many segments of the economy.
But sending $2,000 to everyone is an inefficient way to address the problem because a lot of that money will go to people who don’t need it.
And that’s true. It is inefficient.
You know who put this inefficiency in motion? Mitch McConnell and the rest of the federal government.
As far back as March, people who pay attention to this stuff were ringing alarm bells, warning that the government was trying to do the economic component of the pandemic on the cheap. This approach would inevitably result in us having to revisit the idea of stimulus again and again, each time at the point of emergency. Here’s what I wrote back then:
This is not a $2 trillion problem we are facing. It's probably not even a $5 trillion problem. The entire American economy, more or less, needs to be backstopped because we cannot begin an economic recovery until the pandemic is at a place where it can be managed. And we are not yet close to that point.
So here's the real problem with both the Democratic and Republican plans: We're going to be back here doing this again, soon .
Mitch McConnell and Republican senators could have gone big early. With a pool of money in reserve, they could have used the next nine months to find ways to target relief funding in the most efficient manner possible.
Instead, we’ve veered from crisis point to crisis point, where complex decisions have to be made quickly and the only tools available are inefficient ones.
The Republican party did this. Populist my ass.
Well, we have had 3.4 MM new cases in the 21 days since 12 November. If Trevor's 1.6% CFR still holds, you end up with 54,000 deaths over the next 21 days. Merry Christmas.
Our reported death total for that 21 day span from December 3 to December 24 was 52,584.
Pretty close to the pin.
We got that projection by using a Case Fatality Rate of 1.6 percent and applying it to the new case count of the preceding three weeks.
Now do the math looking three weeks out from here: Over the last 21 days we’ve had 4.38 million new cases. So we should expect roughly 70,000 more deaths between now and January 20.
But don’t worry. Mitch McConnell is on the job.
You may recall that just the other day the polling firm Rasmussen was helpfully suggesting that Republicans follow advice from Joseph Stalin.
Well now the polling firm is back for more non-data-based analysis. Here’s what happened:
Act I:
Rasmussen Reports @Rasmussen_Poll"Ron Raffensperger is the CTO of Huawei Enterprise Storage Solutions. Based in Shenzhen, China." Impossible. Media would have reported this if it was true, yes? Brad Raffensperger’s Brother Works For Huawei
Brad Raffensperger’s Brother Works For Huawei - DickMorris.com Everyone wondered why Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did all he could to block President Trump’s efforts to get a fair count of the votes there. He refused to require adequate verification of signatures on absentee and mail-in ballots, kicked Republican observers out on election day a… shar.es December 30th 2020
434 Retweets 599 LikesAct II:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump...The consent decree signed by the “Secretary”, with the consent of Kemp, is perhaps even more poorly negotiated than the deal that John Kerry made with Iran. Now it turns out that Brad R’s brother works for China, and they definitely don’t want “Trump”. So disgusting! #MAGA
December 30th 2020
23,728 Retweets 99,415 LikesAct III:
stephen fowler covers Georgia's election! @stphnfwlrThe "theory" is that Ron Raffensperger is Brad Raffensperger's brother, and somehow because Huawei is a Chinese company, that somehow China owns Dominion (it doesn't) and somehow nefariously installed machines in GA. Pesky thing is - Raffensperger doesn't *have* a brother.
stephen fowler covers Georgia's election! @stphnfwlr
Ok today in EASY conspiracy-land to debunk. There's posts/memes floating around claiming Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's "brother" Ron is CTO of a Huawei subsidiary, ergo China, ergo suspicion with Dominion. Ron+Brad are not bros and look nothing alike!!! https://t.co/KBpzZNgfCaDecember 23rd 2020
131 Retweets 445 LikesJust the president of the United States claiming that a political enemy (who is actually one of his supporters) is committing a crime because he’s doing the bidding of his fake brother’s Chinese paymasters.
It would be funny. Ha-ha. Look at the crazy man. He sends out some crazy tweets. Let’s all laugh about it and not be so gauche as to take him seriously, or literally, or whatever.
Except that by the time this man leaves office his insanity will have killed 400,000 Americans.
So it’s not funny. Not at all. It makes me sick. And it ought to make you sick, too.
And even “defeat” might be putting it too generously. Donald Trump will leave office, but he will continue in public life. He will almost certainly position himself to run again. And the Republican party itself is an authoritarian apparatus. Just go ask the distinguished gentleman from Missouri.
But we’re going to try to make this work because we have no other option. I say this all the time because I believe it, in my bones: We’re all in this together.
So join us. Help us rebuild political life. It’s time to ride or die.
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Republican senators who want to stay on Trump's good side are going to have to stand up in the senate and say whether or not they want to help him try and steal the election.
It is going to be an amazing spectacle.
The right wing, the GOP and the new conservatism has something to hide. This move by Hawley and others is a deflection with a hope of mass protests probably spawned by foreign actors. Could it be that dirty laundered money is the underpinnings of the republican party and it will stop at nothing to make sure the proof and evidence never sees the light of day?
Remember the NRA and their money issues? Start there.
Another wacky conspiracy theory?
No. No conspiracy. Just follow the money. It is simple.3
With a pool of money in reserve, they could have used the next nine months to find ways to target relief funding in the most efficient manner possible.
Pelosi wouldn't agree to any of it.
Suggest you study a bit to find out why Pelosi would not agree to 'the provisions' put forth by the republicans.
you are asking for miracles