Teacher of the Year Awardee Wishes Mitch McConnell's Neighbor Would Attack Him
Source: AP Photo/Susan Walsh
A teacher of the year awardee tweeted his hope a neighbor of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attacks him in a similar manner as when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was attacked by his neighbor, which left him serious injuries.
"Who are Mitch McConnell's neighbors? I'm just saying Rand Paul's neighbor did what a true Kentucky hero should do. It's your turn to step up," Rodney Robinson tweeted on Wednesday. The attacker left Paul with five rib fractures after he was tackled from behind while mowing his lawn in 2017.
“National Teacher of the Year”. Cc: @CapitolPolice @FBI @SecretService pic.twitter.com/XbD66KMHgm
— Scott Jennings + (@ScottJenningsKY) December 30, 2020
Richmond Public Schools announced in 2019 Robinson was the National Teacher of the Year:
"In 2015, Robinson started teaching at Virgie Binford Education Center, a school inside the Richmond Juvenile Detention Center, in an effort to better understand the school-to-prison pipeline.
"Robinson uses the whole child approach to education to help the students who are most vulnerable. His classroom is a collaborative partnership between himself and his students and is anchored in him providing a civic centered education that promotes social-emotional growth. Robinson uses the knowledge he has gained from his students to develop alternative programs to prevent students from entering the school-to-prison pipeline."
Kelly Paul, the wife of Rand Paul, tweeted her disgust at Robinson's tweet.
I am so disgusted by this I have no words. The 2019 “National Teacher Of The Year” is celebrating the violent assault on my husband that resulted in 6 broken ribs and part of his lung being removed. This hateful thug is calling for more violence on Sen McConnell. @jack https://t.co/JLraxwLaZD
— Kelley Paul (@KelleyAshbyPaul) December 31, 2020
Robinson has since deleted the tweet and locked his account. He also said his tweet was meant to be a joke and that he angered the "conservative bots."
Sanders’ political stunt over $2,000 stimulus checks fails
A political stunt by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is set to end in predictable futility this weekend when the Senate gives final approval to a record $741 billion military spending bill, overriding the veto issued by President Trump last week.
The Senate will pump this record sum into the coffers of the Pentagon, fueling an American war machine directed against the population of the entire planet, without taking up the $2,000-per-person stimulus payment on which Sanders has been demanding a vote.
Sanders announced Tuesday that he would object to taking up a measure to override Trump’s veto until after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to hold a vote on the $2,000 payment passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives Monday night.
He presented himself as holding hostage the defense override vote—critical to the Pentagon and the gigantic US armaments industry—until after the Senate Republican agreed to take up larger economic relief checks to American workers. It turned out, however, that this mock-heroic stance was a trivial parliamentary maneuver that only delayed the NDAA vote by a few days.
McConnell contemptuously refused to hold a vote on the $2,000 economic relief check, claiming that most people did not need it. He then set the Senate machinery in motion for a veto override on the military spending bill. When the first procedural motion came before the Senate on Wednesday evening, the vote was 80-12 to begin consideration, with the vast majority of Democrats, as well as Republicans, siding with McConnell over Sanders.
If Sanders continues to object to an immediate override vote, a second procedural vote to limit debate to 30 hours will take place on Friday, to be followed by an all-night pro-forma session and a final vote to override Trump’s veto some time Saturday, January 1. The massive Pentagon authorization bill, including tens of billions for nuclear bombs and additional warships, Stealth fighter jets and other weaponry, will become law over Trump’s veto.
Of course, Trump was not opposed to this gargantuan funding level, only to a few secondary matters where he chose to make an issue as part of his overall effort to develop a mass fascist movement in America. He opposed the retitling of US military bases named after Confederate generals, in order to appeal to racists nostalgic for the glories of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. And he demanded that the NDAA include a provision attacking Facebook and Twitter for imposing mild restrictions on his ability to spew lies and incite violence on social media.
In this entire process, Sanders has demonstrated the bankruptcy of his perspective that the Democratic Party can be transformed, through political pressure from below, into an instrument for progressive change. His grandiose claims of “political revolution” through the Democratic Party have been reduced to this: a failed effort to get a $1,400 increase in relief aid for working people, which a majority of Democratic senators, let alone Republicans, were unwilling to support.
Sanders spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday about the mass suffering inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic and the economic catastrophe produced by it. He pointed out to McConnell that his home state of Kentucky has 10 of the 25 poorest counties in America, where $2,000 checks might stave off evictions, foreclosures and outright hunger.
McConnell, a multimillionaire many times over, both through marriage into a wealthy family and a 36-year career in the Senate, could care less about starving and homeless people in Appalachia. But the same is true of his Democratic counterparts, like Joe Manchin in neighboring West Virginia, defender of the coal bosses, and Mark Warner of Virginia, a telecommunications mogul before entering politics.
In taking up the $2,000-per-person check, moreover, the Democrats in both the House and Senate only went into action after Trump declared, for his own demagogic purposes, that the $600-per-person payment contained in the coronavirus relief bill he signed into law on Sunday was “too small.” The Democratic leadership in the House seized on the opportunity to embarrass Senate Republicans, particularly the two Georgia senators who face runoff election contests January 5.
The implied bargain in Sanders’ posturing is thoroughly reactionary. If the Republicans would agree to send $2,000 checks to hungry and dispossessed American workers, he would drop his obstruction of the massive military budget which arms American imperialism for war with China, Russia, Iran or any other country targeted by the military-intelligence apparatus.
As far as the Pentagon budget is concerned, Sanders’ position is completely unprincipled. He does not oppose imperialism or even utter the word. He defends the “national interest” of Wall Street just as much as the most rabid Republican rightist. His disagreements are only tactical—which countries should be targeted and when—and reflect concerns that diverting too many resources into the military could aggravate social tensions within the United States and endanger the capitalist social order, which he supports and defends.
None of these considerations have stopped the pseudoleft supporters of Sanders from glorifying his actions as intransigent and transformational. The website of Jacobin magazine, the semi-official voice of the Democratic Socialists of America, published an effusive commentary, written by David Sirota, a former press spokesman for the Sanders campaign, under the headline, “Bernie Sanders Is Fighting for a $2,000 Check for You on the Senate Floor.”
Sirota contrasted the inaction of “Senate Democrats” with Sanders, who he claimed “is pledging to filibuster a Pentagon veto override to provide real help for millions of Americans struggling to survive.” The Vermont senator was supposedly “flipping the script” by using the Republicans’ own “hardball” tactics against them, by taking the military budget hostage. He was, in Sirota’s words, “pulling a McConnell on McConnell.”
The Jacobin writer went on to praise Sanders for carrying out a tactic he had used many times before in congressional maneuvering. “He reached across the aisle to find an unlikely Republican ally (in this case Sen. Josh Hawley) to forge a left-right coalition …” Aside from concealing the unpleasant reality that Sanders’ real “ally” in this effort was Trump, Sirota’s adulation was premature. Only hours after his article appeared, the Senate voted to move ahead with the military veto override, dismissing Sanders’ objections.
Neither Sanders nor his pseudoleft supporters breathe a word about what is really required to defend the lives and livelihoods of working people against the pandemic: not a small one-time payment but full income support for all workers in nonessential occupations to allow them to stay home until the disease is brought under control.
In playing court jester in the latest spat between Trump, McConnell and the Democratic leadership in Congress, Sanders is only demonstrating his future role under the Biden administration. He will do everything possible to build illusions in the possibility of progressive reform by a government that will deepen the attacks on working people in America and around the world.
McConnell Blocks Sen. Sanders' Call to Vote on $2,000 Stimulus
Source: Nicholas Kamm/Pool via AP
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected to Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) call for the $2,000 relief check bill to be passed via unanimous consent. Sanders threatened to delay the override of President Trump’s defense bill veto until New Year's if McConnell resists. Keeping the senators at work through the holidays could put a dent in the campaign plans of Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both fighting for re-election and the continuing GOP control of the Senate.
"Let me be clear: If Senator McConnell doesn't agree to an up or down vote to provide the working people of our country a $2,000 direct payment, Congress will not be going home for New Year's Eve," Sanders said on Monday. "Let's do our job."
This week on the Senate floor Mitch McConnell wants to vote to override Trump's veto of the $740 billion defense funding bill and then head home for the New Year.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) December 28, 2020
I'm going to object until we get a vote on legislation to provide a $2,000 direct payment to the working class.
But as soon as Sanders made the call on the Senate floor on Tuesday, McConnell objected.
President Trump signed the second COVID relief package last week, yet told Congress he wants to see an edited version that increases the $600 stimulus payments to $2,000 and gets rid of unnecessary spending. The House voted to increase the stimulus by a vote of 275-134 on Monday. But McConnell has not indicated that he'll schedule a vote on the amended amount.
Several conservative lawmakers have objected to the second COVID relief bill.
Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), for instance, called it an "irresponsible swamp bill."
Gingrich: Middle Class Have Been the ‘Big Losers’ in Pandemic; Says $2,000 Checks Will ‘Help’ Struggling Americans
As Congress weighs to increase coronavirus stimulus checks to individuals from $600 to $2,000, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Tuesday joined President Donald Trump’s call to increase the payout in the coronavirus stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000.
On FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Gingrich acknowledged the importance of balancing the federal budget but said that middle-class Americans have been the “big losers” from the shutdowns put in place to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, particularly in Democratic states. He added that $2,000 checks would “help” the average American struggling from the “mess” created by some governments.
“This is like being in World War II. We have a disaster in this country made dramatically worse by Democratic governors in places like California, Illinois, New York who have been crushing small business, killing the restaurant industry,” Gingrich outlined. “You know, the big losers have been middle-class Americans. The big winners have been the very rich and government employees who got paid for not doing any work, including millions of members of the teachers union who didn’t do any work, but got … collectively billions of dollars for sitting around.”
He continued, “So, I think if you are an average everyday person, you look at all of this mess, and you think the government has clearly not done its job, particularly the state governments led by Democrats, and $2,000 will help me. I think that’s what’s going on.”
“[T]his is not about deficit spending. That train is long gone. We’re in the middle of a disaster. I think the average American deserves some help,” Gingrich later added.
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the CASH Act on Monday, aimed at increasing coronavirus relief payments from $600 to $2,000, thereby kicking the legislation to the Senate, which needs 60 votes to make the increase — pushed by President Donald Trump — a reality.
Upon announcing he would sign the $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and government spending bill Sunday, Trump demanded Congress eliminate wasteful spending and increase the amount of the direct payments going to the American people.
The House successfully passed the legislation 275-134, though most Republicans voted against it — 130 compared to the 44 who supported it. Twenty-one Republican lawmakers did not vote and all but two Democrats supported the measure. Reps. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) and Kurt Schrader (D-OR) opposed it.
Schrader referred to the measure as a “last-minute political maneuver by the president and extremists on both sides of the political spectrum who have been largely absent during months of very hard negotiations.”
“People who are making six-figure incomes (and) have not been impacted by COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus], do not need checks. We’ve had nine months to fix this program, to get it to people who need it most, that has not happened,” he said on the House floor.
“Let’s reverse course and target those in need,” he added.
His remarks drew ire from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who noted the amount “starts phasing out at $75k”:
1st of all, aid starts phasing out at $75k
2. it’s already tied to outdated income info, don’t make it worse
3. Ppl who made $100k+ also had income disrupted
4. Is this really a good reason to block aid for millions
5. If you’re going to err, err on the side of helping people https://t.co/tBSuR99WLN
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 28, 2020
Regardless of the opposition in the House, the measure now moves to the Senate, where leadership has remained relatively mum on increasing direct payments to the American people. The measure needs sixty votes in the Senate to pass, requiring support from at least 12 Republican lawmakers.
There is chatter that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will “block consideration of the NDAA veto override until Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL schedules a vote on the $2,000 check bill,” according to Politico’s Playbook. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is among GOP lawmakers who remain explicitly on board with increasing the amount of individual stimulus checks, releasing an official statement Monday.
A “Republican source” reportedly told Axios that “it might get 60” votes if McConnell brings it to the floor. “Then Trump can claim victory,” the GOP source added.
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