'Friendship' | Tom Camfield

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"Mitch McConnell is not an Opposition Leader, he is a pawn for the Democrats to get whatever they want," Trump said in a statement last week. "He is afraid of them, and will not do what has to be done. A new Republican Leader in the Senate should be picked immediately! . . . Why do Republican Senators allow a broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard-working Republican candidates for the United States Senate?" Trump wrote on Truth Social. He also called McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, who served in the Trump administration as secretary of transportation, "crazy" in the same tweet. Chao was one of the first Cabinet officials to resign after the Capitol riot. She’s reported to have spoken to the House January 6 panel earlier this month. Trump said McConnell should spend less time "helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China.”

(Pause here to read an old June 2017 article by Googling title “Trump’s conflict of interest in China.” It begins “China has been busy buying Trump properties since the election and has granted Trump a long-sought series of trademarks in the country — just days after Trump reversed his position on Taiwan.”)

Curious over her political experience compared to that of Trump, who never spent time in public office before running for for president, I found “Elaine Lan Chao (born 1953) is an American businesswoman and member of the Republican Party. She served as the 18th United States secretary of transportation in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021, and as the 24th United States secretary of labor in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2009. Chao was the first Asian American woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet.

“Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Chao immigrated to the United States when she was eight years old. Her father founded the Foremost Group, which eventually became a major shipping corporation. Chao was raised on Long Island, New York, and subsequently received degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Harvard Business School. She worked for a number of financial institutions before being appointed to several senior positions in the Department of Transportation under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, including Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission (1988–1989) and Deputy Secretary of Transportation (1989–1991). She served as Director of the Peace Corps from 1991 to 1992 and as president of the United Way of America from 1993 to 1996 “. . . etc.

Meanwhile, control of the Senate all sort of goes back to Mid-Sept. 2020. About an hour after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell stated: “Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary. Once again, we will keep our promise,” McConnell said. “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

In the election Nov. 3 Trump lost his bid for re-election to the presidency — and, If I recall correctly — the Democratic Party made a net gain of three Senate seats and the vice presidency, giving them a majority for the first time since 2014, albeit by a narrow 50-50 margin.

But the actual change was all “lame duck” until January 2021.

Democrats quickly rallied behind Senate party leader Chuck Schumer, indicating that they would be unified as they tried to block Trump and McConnell from filling the seat. “Under no circumstances should the Senate consider a replacement for Justice Ginsburg until after the presidential inauguration.” But we al know what happened.

Senator McConnell made his position clear in 2016 when he held Justice Scalia’s seat vacant for 10 months so he could deny President Obama an appointment – a goal he himself admitted,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Fix Our Senate, a Democratic outside group, quickly announced a six-figure ad buy saying that McConnell “must follow his own rule” and let the next president fill the vacancy. And Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) warned that if Republicans fill the seat, Democrats should nix the legislative filibuster if they win back the majority so they can expand the Supreme Court. 

“Mitch McConnell set the precedent. No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court,” he tweeted. 

So we’ll see. It all emphasizes the importance of the mid-term election in November.