Looks Like Mitch Will Win Again

Mitch McConnell continues to outmaneuver and outplay Democrats at every turn, like he has for the last decade, and frankly it's getting exhausting. Senate Democrats at this point are walking away from the COVID-19 relief talks with something, better than nothing, and nobody's happy, and it's not just Pelosi and Schumer.

 

It's also far less than what we need, and he's sabotaging the country just like the GOP did with the Obama stimulus 12 years ago.

 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is getting much of what he wants in an emerging coronavirus relief package, after months of digging in his heels against a demand by Democratic leaders to pass a multitrillion-dollar package that would shore up the ailing finances of state and local governments.

The GOP leader isn’t getting liability protection for businesses and other organizations but McConnell himself last week proposed dropping that controversial item along with another large tranche of funding for state and local government.

State and local funding was a top priority of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Democrats are getting $90 billion in relief for local governments but it will be distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, meaning city and state leaders will have less control. Democrats say that money for housing assistance will also help ease the fiscal burdens on states.

But McConnell is getting a deal a lot closer to what Democrats dismissed as the “emaciated” plan he pushed in recent months than the $2.2 trillion HEROES Act that Pelosi and Schumer said should have been the “starting point” of the talks.

That was quickly leading to some criticism on Wednesday as it emerged the sides were closing in on an agreement, though in Congress, some Democrats taking shots at the package still said it should be approved.

“This is not any place close to what is needed,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said of the emerging $900 billion deal.

But Warren said Democrats have little choice but to accept a much smaller relief package than they wanted in order to get a deal.

“That makes for a very difficult negotiation,” she said of McConnell’s staunch insistence on a “targeted” package below $1 trillion.

She faulted the GOP leader, saying “Mitch McConnell is willing to let American families walk away with nothing.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) similarly criticized the bill while giving his blessing to its outlines.

Sanders had pushed for a new round of stimulus checks, something that will be a part of the final package.

But the checks will not be as large as he wished, and it will not include other provisions including the aid to local governments that he’d backed.

“There is simply not enough money in the proposal to deal with the unprecedented crises that we now face,” Sanders said Wednesday.

He told CNN that “we met very stiff resistance from Mitch McConnell and the Republican leadership.”

“What we got now is not enough but it is something,” he said.

A Democratic senator who requested anonymity to assess the emerging deal said McConnell largely got what he wanted.

“He got negotiators down way away from where Nancy Pelosi was and he’s going to do a package that’s not going to be enough for the American people and he’s not doing anything on state and local [funding] and he didn’t have to compromise on the liability protections,” the senator said.

So Mitch once again holds the country hostage and wins, while Democrats congratulate themselves that hey didn't butcher even more hostages in the process. Yay, Congress!

In the end, Mitch wins again and again because he is more ruthless, more willing to do whatever it takes to maintain power, and more willing to sacrifice the American people, and the Democrats are  simply not.  If he's still in power come January, expect this to continue for the entire Biden administration:

 

 

Mitch wins because he's willing to shoot hostages, and when they die, the police are always blamed, period. And every single voter will blame Biden and the Dems in 2022 and they will give the GOP even more power, and the cycle of abuse continues until we're all dead.

We have one shot to break that cycle in Georgia on January 5. One.