coronavirus bailout

Trump's tweet was hilarious Wednesday morning. I wondered if it gave McConnell heart failure; I'm certain it sent Pelosi into a state of near exultation, if not euphoria. He completely undercut McConnell's already weak bargaining position on the must-pass pandemic relief bill-- telling the Republicans (i.e.- McConnell) to "go for the much higher numbers." It also looks like Trump told Meadows to get a bill done.

Yesterday, the U.S. reached a new, hideous-- but soon to be forgotten-- threshold in the pandemic: 6.5 million cases. There will have been a quarter million deaths-- most preventable-- before election day. The economy-- the real one, not the Wall Street one-- is a shambles. The Trump Regime response?

On Wednesday, Trump, lying, tried stampeding Congress and bending it to his will by declaring there won't be a pandemic relief package.

There was some sympathy in Congress to let the airlines go bankrupt, but that never got off the ground. Last April the Washington Post noted that the airlines had received more than $12 billion in taxpayer funds as part of the $25 billion they were granted in the first pandemic relief package.

This is a Republican ad-- but who will it help and who will it harm?The Kevin McCarthy-controlled Congressional Leadership Fund went into the 2020 cycle with some kind of delusion that they would be able to go on the offensive and win back the seats they lost in 2018 and thereby the House majority.

The big news Sunday was Trump's executive orders after he sabotaged the negotiations with Congress for a pandemic relief bill. No doubt, his zombie followers will eat it up. No one else will.

Trump has a stronger hand than the Democrats do in the negotiations over the pandemic relief package. That's because he doesn't care about the impact on the American people and even the most conservative and corporatist Democrats do care-- or, at the very least, have to appear to.

Drawing by Nancy OhanianYesterday Mnuchin told reporters he and Meadows-- team Trump-- are not close to a deal with Pelosi and Schumer-- Team America.

NPR issued a depressing report yesterday: States Are Broke And Many Are Eyeing Massive Cuts. One of the sticking points in coming to an agreement over the pandemic rescue package is that the already passed House bill, the $3 trillion HEROES Act, contains around a trillion dollars for state and local governments.

UnAmerican by Chip ProserHouse Democrats passed a $3 trillion dollar recovery and stimulus package in May. The Republicans' bill, finally revealed last night, was about a third of that-- and McConnell said, arbitrarily, that it will likely represent lawmakers’ last major legislative response to the coronavirus pandemic. What an asshat! That's up to the pandemic not some closet case from Kentucky to determine.