Still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. In a previous life, he was a longtime editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. His latest film “Woody Guthrie and The Ghost of Tom Joad Today” is now streaming everywhere via PBS.
I will, as in past (going back to my teen years), follow election campaign races closely this autumn. Just briefly on yesterday’s primaries: former Rep. Mary Peltola sewed up a chance to unseat the incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan in Alaska Senate contest. DSA member Angie Nixon scored shocking upset to defeat Alex Vindman for Dem nod in Senate race in Florida but faces steep odds for November vote. Jared Moskowitz defeated another DSA-er in the state in attempt to stay in Congress, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, forced to run in a black-dominated district due to gerrymandering, still managed to win as the field against her was vast and divided votes.
Tremendous, sometimes darkly humorous, newsletter post by Sarah Kendzior yesterday on Mitch McConnell and more (h/t Barbara Bedway):
It is considered rude to speak ill of the dead. But is it rude to speak ill of the undead? That is the question surrounding Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, missing since June and rumored to be deceased. His staff will not respond to inquiries….
The reason the Mitch McConnell saga is so disturbing isn’t because McConnell may be dead, but because the Senate is. Senator Patrick Leahy made this clear in 2018 following the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
“This judiciary committee is no longer an independent branch of Congress, and we’re supposed to be,” Leahy said. “The Senate is supposed to be. But we’re an arm, and a very weak arm, of the Trump White House. A resemblance of independence has just disappeared. It’s gone.”
Leahy was the rare Senator to be honest about the Senate’s demise and the entrenchment of Trump’s mafia state. As the author of the Leahy Law — a law which forbids the US from funding foreign militaries which violate human rights; a law the US breaks every day — he has witnessed failure carried out in his own name and is inclined to point it out in others.
In 2023, the then 82-year-old Leahy made another anomalous move: stepping down before dropping dead. But the generation that replaced him is one of rotating villains: hypocrites like John Fetterman who run on a banner of human rights and then perform loyalty to a genocidal foreign country, Israel, over the US. If it’s not Israel, then it’s Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or Silicon Valley oligarchs, or any other apparatus of the mafia state — all of which are honored before the American people.
As Senate Leader, McConnell was a prime enabler of Trump and a bureaucratic architect of some of this era’s greatest evils. Dead or alive, that is his legacy. Dead or alive, it does not matter much: and that is the legacy of the modern US Senate.
“Kentucky,” the Everly Brothers crooned. “You are the dearest land outside of Heaven to me.” I’d ask McConnell which is better, but I doubt he’s spending time in either.
Music Pick
The Stray Cats are back, and on Fallon this week with rockabilly classic “Rock This Town.”
From Tune to Toons
Ann Telnaes:
Anderson:
Ohman:
Wexler:
Luckovich:
MacKinnon:
another from Anderson:
de Adder:
Bramhall:
My latest film “Woody Guthrie and The Ghost of Tom Joad Today” is now streaming everywhere via PBS.
Photo Finish
The Little Red Lighthouse, The Great Gray Bridge and….the Goose.
Great cartoons (as always), love the deAdder!
Awesome photo today.
very tong-in-cheek.