Day: October 7, 2020

Recent news has emerged in the Senate race for North Carolina between Thom Tillis (Covid-19) and Cal Cunningham (D) — texts have been revealed that show the Democratic challenger as having had inappropriate texts with a woman that is not his wife. Which in normal times would be a scandal. But attempts by Republicans to express outrage at sexual indiscretion no longer have the weight they used to have. They say nothing when the party figurehead admits on tape to sexually assaulting women because “they let you do it” while he is simultaneously credibly accused by dozens of women over decades of everything from sexual harassment to outright rape. This means that their concerns for the importance of personal morality amongst the elected representatives is being met with what it should be met with — credibility issues. You can’t very well accuse your opponent of something you are happy to accept in shockingly higher degree and number in the leader of your own political party. What this also means is that their ability to take the moral high ground in the future in this and other issues in the future is greatly diminished. You can’t be pro-life when your party doesn’t care about the deaths of 200K+ Americans in six months. You can’t be pro-military when you stand silently by as the troops in Afghanistan have bounties put on their heads. And you certainly don’t get to talk about the sanctity of marriage vows when your figurehead is a three-times married bareback porn star adulterer.

According to this article, a third US Senator, Ron Johnson, has been confirmed as positive for Covid-19. Three more, James Lankford, Ted Cruz, and Ben Sasse are self-quarantining after coming into contact with known infected individuals. 87-year old Chuck Grassley refuses to be tested under similar circumstances. Rick Scott “misspoke” about testing positive. They join Senators Mike Lee and Thom Tillis who have already tested positive. That is EIGHT Republican senators who will be unavailable for the next two weeks in case Mitch McConnell was planning to jam through a new lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court before the election. That does not include Murkowski and Collins, two Republican senators who’ve both already stated they would not vote for a new Supreme Court justice this close to the election. Last I checked, you need 51 votes to approve a new justice (or 50 if the vice president is needed to break a tie) so that means that even if a vote came up, THEY DON’T HAVE THE VOTES TO APPROVE THE JUSTICE! What an on-brand rake-handle-to-the-face from a party of denialists, fearmongerers, and Russian disinformation dealers. Just as they attempt to do something they swore up and down they wouldn’t do four years ago, another set of lies has caught up to them.