Photo via United States Congress, @AngelaBelcamino/Twitter
December 29, 2020, 11:08 am
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is hard at work defending his title as one of the most universally reviled U.S. politician by blocking the $2,000 survival checks demanded by Democrats and Donald Trump alike. After calling Trump’s bluff, the House passed a resolution increasing the amount in the checks from $600 after the outgoing president signed the stimulus bill anyway, then sent it along for a Senate vote.
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As he’s done with COVID relief bills all year and anything else the Democrat-led House has produced, McConnell blocked a call to vote on the issue. Senator Bernie Sanders, seeing this coming, has vowed to filibuster the Senate by objecting to a vote on the defense bill until a vote on the checks is allowed, taking them right into the New Year if necessary.
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Doing so would not only ruin the holiday weekends of many senators, but could also interfere with the campaign schedules of Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are defending their seats in tight runoff elections in Georgia. If both lose, the Senate would be dominated by Democrats in 2021 as soon as Joe Biden takes office.
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Though not exactly unexpected, many are fed up with McConnell, who has gained a reputation for blocking any Senate vote on anything Democrats try to do, even when it has bipartisan support. Many Republicans have come out in favor of $2,000 survival checks for the people and it passed in the House with a two-thirds supermajority.
Trump himself even tweeted in support of Sanders’ filibuster, again demanding the $2,000 amount, even if it is just a populist move on his part as his support in the Republican party fizzles.
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The House also voted over the weekend to override Trump’s veto of the national defense spending bill, which needs to be passed soon to avoid a government shutdown.
Trump objected over the renaming of some military bases named after Confederate generals and the lack of eliminating a law that gives social media companies immunity from lawsuits based on what people post on their platforms.
The Senate now needs to repeat this override for the matter to be settled, which gives Sanders’ filibuster all the more power.
In the meantime, there is no shortage of hate for Mitch McConnell on Twitter.
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*First Published: December 29, 2020, 11:08 am
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