What A Day: Move, Mitch, get out the way

“Bump stocks can help people who have disabilities…who have arthritis in their fingers.”

- Texas gun rights advocate Michael Cargill debuting a brave new ableism argument in the anti-gun-control arsenal

Republicans have created an absolute shitstorm in Congress and are falling apart internally. Somehow, people still vote for them!
 

• The old Mesozoic Era dinosaur himself, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he plans to step down from GOP leadership in November, which will end his tenure as the longest-serving Senate leader in American history. AND one of the worst, we might add! The 82-year-old McConnell has faced health issues in the past year, including two incidents when he froze bizarrely while answering questions from reporters. He also fell and suffered a concussion at a fundraiser last year. Classic gerontocracy problems!
   

• There’s no denying that McConnell has been incredibly influential…in normalizing some of the worst policies and most underhanded legislative lever-pulling the Senate had ever seen. He’s the man who ensured the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, which overturned Roe vs. Wade before launching a further parade of horrible right-wing decisions. He helped pack the lower courts with Trump nominees, who will be there for a generation. He gleefully stifled former President Barack Obama’s agenda. Of course, he’s had plenty of time to do so much damage.He began his congressional career in 1984 at age 40 during the Reagan administration. (All things being equal, Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate at age 29 in 1972.) McConnell suggested he plans to finish out his term, which will end in 2026. Always one to worship at the altar of “civility”, President Biden said on Wednesday he was sorry to hear McConnell step down, adding, “I’ve trusted him, and we have a great relationship. We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything.” Come ON, man! This is the guy who cynically denied Merrick Garland a Supreme Court confirmation, who said in 2010 that his top legislative priority was making Obama a one-term president. You don’t have to be nice to him!
   

• McConnell has a frosty relationship with disgraced former president Donald Trump, who has been known to make racist remarks against McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao. Chao served as Trump’s Secretary of Transportation. McConnell did the bare minimum of refusing to back Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, but that should not be mistaken for a greater moral compass. McConnell called Trump “responsible” for the Jan. 6 insurrection, before voting to acquit Trump in the Senate impeachment trial. McConnell was staunchly in favor of most if not all of Trump’s horrendous policies. It’s also extremely likely McConnell will endorse Trump before November.

McConnell’s departure announcement comes just as the White House and Congressional Democrats are trying to cajole Republicans to do their jobs and avert a government shutdown.
 

• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told his colleagues on Wednesday that he and other negotiators in Congress are “very close” to reaching a deal that would side-step a government shutdown at the end of the week, and added that the group “continue[s] to make very good progress on an agreement.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that far-right nonstarter policy riders have been the biggest obstacle to reaching a deal. Senate GOP Whip John Thune said on Wednesday that the funding deadlines could be pushed back by one and two weeks, respectively, but he and many others aren’t in favor of kicking the can down the road. 
   

• Mitch McConnell’s departure and the poison pills in the GOP’s government funding legislation are both representative of a Republican Party moving ever-further to the right. Freedom Caucus psycho and guy who is currently under an Ethics Committee investigation Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted that he and his far-right buddies have “now 86’d McCarthy, McDaniel, and McConnell,” referring to ousted GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who recently announced she will step down after months of pressure from Trump and his allies.

Mitch McConnell may fancy himself as the standard bearer of a more “respectable” bygone era of Republican politics, but in many ways, his personal brand of obstructionism, his career-long opposition to helping any Americans besides the wealthy, and his role in remaking the judiciary paved the way for the ascendant far-right wave that now defines the GOP. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Mitch!

Alabama’s Supreme Court shocked pro-choice supporters across the country after they essentially redefined ‘personhood’ by ruling the destruction of embryos as a crime. On the latest episode of Hysteria, hosts Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco discuss the significant impacts and horrendous effects we expect to see as a result. To learn more about the consequences of this decision, head to the Hysteria feed, available wherever you get your podcasts.

President Biden won Tuesday’s presidential primary contest in Michigan easily. But in second place, 13 percent of Michigan Dem primary participants voted “Uncommitted”—a protest to send a message to Biden about their opposition to his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. “Uncommitted” received over 100,000 votes, significantly more than Biden’s actual human challengers Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips. On Tuesday night, Biden released a 326-word statement on X thanking Michiganders for making “their voice heard” but made no mention of Israel or Gaza. 

Meanwhile, Senior United Nations aid official Ramesh Rajasingham told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that “if nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable.” The World Food Program also warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza, and reported that child malnutrition in the enclave is currently the worst in the world. A report by the U.N. children’s agency said on Monday that 1 in 6 children in Gaza are acutely malnourished. Almost 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, and another 70,300 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At least 242 IDF soldiers have been killed since the ground invasion of Gaza began, according to the Israeli Military.

The Supreme Court announced it will take up disgraced former president Donald Trump’s claim of broad immunity from prosecution, which keeps the federal criminal case against him in Washington D.C. on pause. The court scheduled oral arguments for the week of April 22. 

A judge in Illinois ordered Trump removed from the state’s primary ballots due to his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, making the Prairie State the third to boot Trump, following Maine and Colorado. The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether any of this will be allowed to stand.

A New York appeals court denied Trump’s initial bid to pay a reduced $100 million bond on the $464 million judgment in his civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY). 

As a shock to absolutely no one, two-thirds of Americans think frozen embryos shouldn’t be considered people, according to a new Axios poll. That being said, one-third thinking they should is still too high!

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared deeply divided on whether or not to uphold a federal ban on bump stocks, a device that allows semi-automatic rifles to fire continuously. The ban was initially approved under Trump in the wake of a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, where a single gunman killed 58 people using bump stock devices. 

An Indiana man named Andrew Nickels pleaded guilty on Tuesday to threatening to kill a Michigan elections clerk the week after the 2020 election. He left a voicemail for the Rochester Hills, MI Clerk Tina Barton, saying she deserved a “throat to the knife” (lol these guys can’t even get their threats right) because she “frauded out America of a real election.” I wonder which former president helped give him that idea! 

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said President Biden’s legal justification for attacks on Houthi militants in Yemen is “laughable.” Kaine acknowledged that “Houthi behavior is abhorrent,” but the senator expressed “grave skepticism” about the White House’s interpretation of presidential military powers 

The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill on Monday that would largely ban the display of pride flags in public school classrooms, sending the legislation to the state Senate. 

A woman spouting full-fledged neo-Nazi and anti-semitic rhetoric named Lori Kauffman is running to represent Boston’s First Suffolk District on the Massachusetts Republican State Committee. Kauffman, (who was raised Jewish!) said she wants to “exile all Jews,” ban same-sex marriage, make being trans “illegal.” MassGOP released a statement condemning Kauffman and warning people not to vote for her. They unanimously passed a resolution to condemn her in December. Here’s a hot tip: if Republicans don’t want Nazis in the party they should stop being so welcoming to Nazis!!

In truly hilarious news, the CEO of oil giant ExxonMobil Darren Woods blamed the public for “waiting too long” to address climate change.

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Starbucks announced on Tuesday that it had affirmatively agreed to bargain with workers and their representatives for a contract after months of fighting the formation of unions. In a joint statement with the company’s workers union, Starbucks said that it will “begin discussions on a foundational framework designed to achieve…collective bargaining agreements for represented stores and partners.” One Venti union with extra rights, please!