Mitch McConnell's support in Kentucky has cratered...

[Kid Berwyn]

...since he attached himself to Trump — and now his seat is on the line

Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story October 31, 2019

Excerpt...

“The poll showing that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the president’s most stolid defender, is down to a 18 percent job approval rating in Kentucky. Only 37 percent in the Public Policy Poll said they would vote for him again next year,” she wrote, adding that McConnell’s numbers should serve as a warning to all GOP lawmakers no matter how conservative their states are.

“The Bluegrass State is the canary in the mine for how much Trump can help, or hurt, a candidate as his impeachment looks ever more likely. After two weeks of unimpeachable civil servants bearing witness to an impeachable president, clinging to Trump out of fear he will kill you if you don’t do what he says is becoming more politically perilous,” she wrote before pointing out: “McConnell’s facing his toughest race since he first won election in 1984.”

As such, McConnell has moved ever-so-slightly away from Trump, with Carlson writing, “As his poll numbers have dropped and his re-election bid looms, McConnell has made ever so slight moves to distance himself from Trump, whose whims now extend to the slaughter of our erstwhile allies, like the Kurds and Ukrainians. Somewhere inside the old McConnell lives a patriot and institutional loyalist appalled that Trump has deputized a shadow government staffed by rogue operators like Rudy Giuliani and his now-indicted pals. To those ends, McConnell recently refused to confirm Trump’s claim that McConnell said his Ukrainian call was ‘innocent,’ or to agree that impeachment is a “lynching.” He hedges his criticism of impeachment by objecting to the process.”

Unfortunately for McConnell, as she writes, should things go south for Trump, McConnell will likely be dogged by the fact that his wife, Elain Chao works in the Trump administration as Secretary of Labor and because of a fundraising email he sent out using stopping Trump’s impeachment as a hook for donations.

Continues...

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/mitch-mcconnells-support-in-kentucky-has-cratered-since-he-attached-himself-to-trump-and-now-his-seat-is-on-the-line/

Ha ha. It is to laugh.

[smirkymonkey]

1. Donate to Amy McGrath!

https://amymcgrath.com/

I have a few times. Let's get this bastard out of there! Go Amy!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I donate to her on a regular basis!

[Big Blue Marble]

9. I am sending Amy a monthly donation, too.

I have met her. She is the real deal.

[wryter2000]

5. Done

How can he get re-elected with that approval rating?

If he loses, I will do a happy dance for Merrick Garland.

[Horse with no Name]

6. One word

Russia

[OMGWTF]

27. Word

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/03/gop-campaigns-took-7-35-million-from-oligarch-linked-to-russia/

[Lonestarblue]

35. Ted Cruz has really low approval ratings in Texas.

Yet he was reelected. For Republicans, the question isn’t whether they approve of the job their candidate is doing. It’s that he or she is not a Democrat. Independents who lean Republican are more likely to vote for a Democrat if the Republican is a crook like Moscow Mitch.

There’s an important election for governor in Kentucky next week. Keeping my fingers crossed that Bevin loses. He is enormously disliked for what he tried to do to the teacher pension system.

[Kid Berwyn]

22. Great idea!

Amy M. McGrath is an American former Marine fighter pilot and political candidate. She was the first female Marine Corps pilot to fly the F/A-18 on a combat mission. McGrath served for 20 years in the Marine Corps during which time she flew 89 combat missions bombing al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Vs.

Mitch was in the Army and then one day he wasn’t.

[smirkymonkey]

33. And wasn't Mitch's Army discharge kind of suspicious?

I don't know what it was, but I recall that it was something strange.

[Kid Berwyn]

40. Mitch won't release his records, including the reference to a Courts Martial.

Excerpt...

McConnell’s discharge was expedited by Cooper’s claim that the enlistee needed to be released quickly to attend New York University. NYU records, however, indicate that McConnell never applied to the school, and at the time of his discharge he had already earned a law degree from the University of Kentucky. Why exactly would a United States Senator write to the Commanding General of one of the nation’s most important military instillations with false information about a member of the US armed forces?

Continues...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-mitch-mcconnell-h_b_137083

Many people want to know if that’s a cover story.

[LAS14]

39. Thanks for the link. Done!! nt

[crickets]

4. GOOD.

[Kid Berwyn]

23. Gave me a happy feeling.

I love Kentucky and it’s people. They are smart, industrious and generous. A good friend of mine was a physician who was born and raised there — a Vietnam vet, ER doc, and all-around progressive. Thus, I have long been surprised by the presence of McConnell in the US Senate.

[lagomorph777]

42. KY is going to slide Moscow Mitch right out.

Looks like he's in a sticky mess.

[INdemo]

7. If the truth was know he stole the damn thing

In 2014 with Russian help
The polling numbers 1 week before election were within the Margin of error but yet he won by about 15% against a very worthy challenger.

[Kid Berwyn]

24. Weird, how the winners so often do all they can to hurt the United States.

The "gravedigger of American democracy": Holocaust historian says Mitch McConnell broke politics

Historian Christopher Browning compares the GOP senate leader to Germany's Paul von Hindenburg

by CODY FENWICK, AlterNet, OCTOBER 5, 2018 8:54PM (UTC)

In a new piece for the "New York Review of Books," historian Christopher Browning warns that there are troubling parallels between the present-day United States and the days of fascism's rise in Europe.

Browning, a specialist in the areas of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and world war-era Europe, isn't arguing that President Donald Trump is a modern Adolf Hitler or that Trumpism is akin to Nazism. But he does argue that certain stress fractures in the society and the international order appear to be re-emerging and that these patterns portend troubling trends for the United States and the rest of the world.

And there is one figure in American politics that Browning does see as a relatively direct — and troubling — analog to a crucial world war-era figure. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, is becoming "the gravedigger of American democracy," Browning wrote, a role played for Germany beginning in the 1930s by President Paul von Hindenburg.

Hindenburg didn't defend democracy in Germany. Instead, he unleashed emergency powers in 1930 to appoint chancellors to skirt over political divisions in parliament. Eventually, Hitler became chancellor, when Hindenburg erroneously thought he could be controlled.

Now, McConnell shows a similar disregard for democracy and likewise opens up the country to serious risk, Browning explained:

He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings.

Continues...

https://www.salon.com/2018/10/05/historian-of-nazism-explains-why-gop-senate-leader-mitch-mcconnell-is-the-gravedigger-of-american-democracy_partner/

——————————

“Moscow Mitch, the Gravedigger of Democracy” sums up what’s at stake.

[DENVERPOPS]

32. He and his Chinese wife

McConnell and his Chinese wife are up to their noses in the enormous corruption and fraud.

We probably will never know the true amount that her oligarch Chinese parents illegally funneled thru the NRA and by other means to Mitch and his wife as well as countless other Republican's war chests......

[CrispyQ]

8. If we keep the House & win the WH & McConnell is still Majority Leader, we're still fucked.

NOTHING will get done. No legislation, no judges, nothing.

[Whiskeytide]

11. Except that the DOJ will once again work for the people. That's pretty big. n/t

[Kid Berwyn]

44. Moscow Mitch

The appellation really seems to get to him. For reason:

MITCH MCCONNELL, RUSSIA SANCTIONS, AND RUSAL’S INVESTMENT IN KENTUCKY

EXCERPT...

A bipartisan majority in the Senate tried to block Trump from weakening the sanctions, but McConnell protected Deripaska and Russia and torpedoed the bipartisan effort.

In a rare bipartisan moment, Democrats were joined by eleven Republicans in an effort to block the deal and to enforce sanctions against Deripaska’s companies.

However, McConnell came out forcefully for lifting the sanctions, making a floor speech “accusing Democrats of politicizing the sanctions.”

McConnell and the remaining Senate Republicans prevented the bipartisan group from reaching the 60 vote threshold. The Trump administration officially lifted the sanctions in January 2019.

CONTINUES...

https://themoscowproject.org/dispatch/mitch-mcconnell-russia-sanctions-and-rusals-investment-in-kentucky/

May ALL the traitors be held to account.

[UTUSN]

10. K&R

Last edited Fri Nov 1, 2019, 12:13 AM - Edit history (4)

[Whiskeytide]

12. "Somewhere inside the old McConnell lives a ...

... patriot and institutional loyalist appalled that Trump has deputized a shadow government staffed by rogue operators like Rudy Giuliani and his now-indicted pals.“

What’s Tom been smoking?

[Stuart G]

13. k and r nt

[Retrograde]

14. I'll believe it when I see the 2020 election results

He's been unpopular for a long time, but always seems to slither back in.

[leftieNanner]

21. Because it's a Red state

And the Kentucky voters hate him, but they hate any and all Democrats more!

Plus, Russia.

[mwooldri]

30. Sort of what I was thinking.

Maybe McConnell's seat is one of those where the GOP could nominate a bloodsucking gnat for senator and the state of Kentucky would vote for the gnat, no matter who the opponent is.

[kurtcagle]

43. I thought they already did?

nt

[Stuart G]

15. Seeing McConnell go down hard, will be just as satisfying as seeing Trump go down hard. nt.

[Buckeyeblue]

16. Under what scenario does McConnell announce his retirement?

He doesn't want to risk losing. So does he lead the way to acquit Trump and then announce his retirement? Or does he lead the way to convict Trump and announce his retirement?

[uponit7771]

17. Moscow Mitch will have many Russian speaking backers to get his numbers back up to 25% and

... then they can add votes.

[a kennedy]

18. Doesn't matter, he'll get elected anyway.

[SergeStorms]

31. That's a defeatest attitude we could do without.

What next, "why vote at all?" If you don't want to join the fight against fascism in our country, please remain silent. Just sayin'.

[DFW]

19. Just keep contributing to McGrath and singing this song:

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. mcCONnell will throw tRump under the bus rather than lose his election. . . . nt

[OnDoutside]

45. And probably his best avenue to save the GOP, by getting Trump out asap. That gives him 9 months or

so to create a whole new narrative.

[FakeNoose]

25. Moscow Mitch could have been the loser in 2014 also

... however something underhanded happened in Kentucky. Well I don't know that for sure, but a lot of coincidences look very suspicious, in light of how the 2016 election played out. Pootie or somebody had a hand in getting McConnell reelected in 2014 even though he didn't have the votes. Of course it was never investigated.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

26. Kentucky needs to be rid of Bevin THIS year

Ky elects a governor this coming Tuesday. Andy Beshear is running against Matt Bevin.

Need to clear this hurdle and then go after Moscow Mitch.

[SergeStorms]

28. Which is why I'm a founding member....

of Amy McGrath for Senator. I'm giving as much as I possibly can to her campaign, and I'm a New Yorker. McConnell is the lowest of the bottom feeding republican rats.

"DEFEAT MITCH! DEFEND DEMOCRACY!"

[empedocles]

29. There are other possibilities, as time goes on

[Midnight Writer]

34. McConnell's actual vote total is always much higher than the polls show. Don't celebrate yet.

[ailsagirl]

36. GOOD-- geez, I can't figure out why he's ever been elected for ANYTHING

[riversedge]

37. Trump will dump Millions on his camp. yes. he.will.

[LAS14]

38. A case can be made that McConnell is worse than Trump. nt

[Garrett78]

41. I wonder what his numbers were this time 6 years ago.

[Hekate]

46. How's that gerrymandering coming along in Kentucky? Moscow Mitch ain't gone yet...

...and turtles are notoriously long-lived.

Still, this is very pleasant news.