[image_credit]REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst[/image_credit][image_caption]Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell[/image_caption]
Americans believe in the rule of law. We have a deeply embedded commitment to honor and uphold our Constitution. McConnell has failed to uphold these historic ideals. He promotes policies and person(s) that diminish our valued traditions. His lack of integrity, his hypocrisy and his inability to be candid constitute an amoral abuse of power. He appears to have lost his soul when, as a nation, we are engaged in a struggle to preserve ours.
Nicknames capture some of McConnell’s shortcomings. Three readily come to mind: The Grim Reaper, Moscow Mitch and Rich Mitch. McConnell has embraced the title Grim Reaper. He brags about killing legislation passed by the House. He thwarts efforts to extend an economic lifeline to citizens in need because of the pandemic. His tactics are clever and cunning. He has mastered the arcane rules of the Senate and in the process rendered the “world’s greatest deliberative body” dysfunctional.
McConnell has also earned the Grim Reaper title for a more contemptible reason. His actions have resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many Americans. The federal government has failed to properly address the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump and McConnell, as his enabler, must shoulder much of the blame for this failure as COVID-19 rages out of control and the death toll mounts. At best, their actions can be described as benign neglect. A more apt descriptor may be malfeasance.
Had McConnell and the President acted responsibly, tens of thousands of mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, health workers and first responders would be alive today. When confronted with his failings during a recent debate, McConnell’s response was to flash his classic smirk and laugh.
Moscow Mitch also describes McConnell well. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not our friend. He is an autocrat who uses suppression and assassination to maintain power. He is a foe of our democracy who seeks to subvert our elections. He did the latter in 2016 and 2018 and tried to do it again in 2020.
Unfortunately, Putin appears to have found an ally in McConnell. The Senate had the opportunity to make an inquiry into and render judgment on the extent of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. But McConnell blocked efforts to present testimony, documentary evidence and other relevant information. He said he had already made up his mind and saw no need to hear the evidence. Imagine your response if as a litigant you went to court and were met with a similar response from the judge.
Rich Mitch is another moniker that fits McConnell well. He entered Congress as a person of modest means, yet today he stands out as one of its richest members. This result should be of concern. It is fair to ask whether he has been paying undue attention to his personal financial agenda as opposed to that of our country. Public service is a privilege, not a means to acquire wealth. McConnell appears to have lost sight of this.
This partial list of McConnell’s failures provides ample grounds for him to relinquish power, but there are two more reasons why I write. Service as a state supreme court justice has taught me about the need for a democracy to have a fair, impartial and independent judiciary. Courts must have integrity and credibility. McConnell has done much to undermine these attributes.
Persons who appear in court must believe they had a fair hearing and that wealth, influence and/or politics did not determine the result. Alexander Hamilton wisely said that an independent judiciary is “requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals” from the effects of “ill humors which . . . sometimes emanate from the people themselves.” Courts must enforce the rule of law, protect the best interests of the people, and provide balance and stability for our society.
[image_credit]mncourts.gov[/image_credit][image_caption]Retired Justice Paul H. Anderson[/image_caption]
My second reason centers on patriotic duty. McConnell and I share a common Scots-Irish heritage. My grandfather taught my sister and me what it means to be Scots-Irish. We love our country. We are patriotic. We must be willing to make sacrifices to serve it. We are not “losers” or “suckers” because of our belief in public service. We helped shape America and believe that the ability of all persons to pursue happiness is an essential part of the country’s greatness. Our leaders must provide the maximum opportunity for the maximum number of people to achieve happiness. McConnell has lost sight of what we stand for. He has embraced an elitist philosophy that benefits the few, the wealthy and the powerful.
The election of Joe Biden means our country will embark upon a new era of leadership. If the two Georgia Senate seats are decided as most pundits predict, Republicans will retain control of the Senate. This means McConnell will likely return as Majority Leader. Does this mean we are destined to endure more gridlock and dysfunction from the Senate? Dare we hope for something better?
The election results in Georgia are uncertain, and there is a slight chance a few Senate Republicans will have the wisdom and courage to put loyalty to country above loyalty to McConnell. There is also a scintilla of possibility that McConnell will work with President-elect Biden. Where there is uncertainty, there is room for optimism. Where optimism exists, there is room for hope. We can hope for a good result in Georgia. We can hope some Republican Senators will work with Biden. We can hope that McConnell will put national interest above his narrow partisan and personal agendas.
There is a clear path for how he can do the latter. He can focus on the “legacy question.” McConnell and I are both in our late 70s. At this stage of a public service career, we often face a question put to us by a grandchild, a niece or nephew or a mentee. The question is: “What did you do to make the world better.”
Will he say: I accumulated great power, but did not use it well; facilitated the demise of America’s middle class; deprived persons of health coverage during a pandemic; stacked the courts with ideologues; sat on the sidelines when a pandemic ran rampant; condoned practices that separated children from their parents and put them in cages; enriched an elite few and myself at the expense of others?
We must hope that McConnell sees the need to provide better answers to that question. We can hope and pray that McConnell will seek out the better angels of his being. We can hope that he will align himself with those who seek to preserve the soul of our country. We must be optimistic that McConnell will find a way to work with his former Senate colleague, Joe Biden, and together strive to heal the breach that exists in our society. We can hope McConnell is capable of doing this for his own sake and the sake of our country. We should hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.
Paul H. Anderson is a retired Minnesota Supreme Court justice who served on the Minnesota Supreme Court for nearly 19 years and as chief judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals for almost two years. Republican Gov. Arne Carlson appointed him to both judicial positions.
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De-industrialsation, the unchecked and untaxed growth of automation/AI, the growth of corporate power and monopoly/oligarchy and the turning of America from a productive society to a consumer /low pay service economy, all of which has devastated the “middle class”, is not just a Rich Mitch or Republican thing, but truly a bi-partisan project, ongoing.
As fellow tool using men, we both appreciate the added capabilities for craftsmanship and productivity a new tool may bring.
My “regular” job is helping manufacturing companies with technology like automation and “AI like applications”. I am only successful when my efforts produce added capabilities for craftsmanship and productivity for my customers.
Why should size of the enterprise determine if innovation is allowed?
Innovation and technological progress isn’t partisan, but it is inevitable. Its been occurring throughout human history, and will continue.
Pro/anti-union legislation, tax policy, employment and worker protections – those things are partisan, and the differences between the parties are substantial.
Both of you entirely miss my point(s).
Monopoly and consolidation of market power is inevitable, but cheering it on and mocking/shaming/indifference to “creative destruction” is a CHOICE, as is creating equal opportunity.
Likewise, automation and AI are perhaps inevitable. Taxing wages but not automation and AI taking away jobs is a CHOICE. Shaming and indifference to those who lose careers/jobs with an attitude that sounds like “let them eat training” is a CHOICE.
Turning society from a productive endeavor to a conspicuous consumer society is NOT INEVITABLE, that is a choice. Ignoring the collapse of good paying jobs for people without college degrees is likewise a CHOICE. Blissful indifference to the collapse of wages and benefits, and a 40year erosion of the middle class is also a choice, as is blaming it on the Other.
“Likewise, automation and AI are perhaps inevitable. Taxing wages but not automation and AI taking away jobs is a CHOICE. Shaming and indifference to those who lose careers/jobs with an attitude that sounds like “let them eat training” is a CHOICE.”
“You cant handle the truth! Son we live in a world that has walls, and those have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it you, you lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.”
Whoops, wrong movie quote. Meant to say:
We live in a world where success is defined by those that can gain a craftsmanship / productivity advantage. Emphasis on “world”. My customers do pay taxes on automation and “AI like software applications”. To tax them additionally to the point that where they say: “forget about it, I’ll just keep 4 guys on a job that can be done by 1”, may satisfy your ideals, but it will not survive in a world market. I was talking with a MN manufacturing manager that builds globally marketed products right here. He said we have invested in technology and automation so that we can compete globally with our locally made products. The jobs at this company are nearly ideal: high pay, growing company, advancement opportunities. The truth is: “Perhaps inevitable” is “inevitable”. And these changes will have effects and to mock training as a response is pretty shortsighted. Saying we’ll tax automation and AI to death and if it still crops up here and there we’ll guarantee an income to those affected is simply not reality. Your solutions? How much should we tax innovation? How much do we guarantee an income to those displaced?
So all hail those innovators successful in the “world” market? What about the 100 million increasingly impoverished Americans? My point is not to tear down the “innovators”. My point is to focus attention on all Americans, that this obsession with technological progress too often makes many of us ignore the plight of those “left behind”, or rather who are effectively ignored, whose prospects have diminished over time. I don’t know how much to tax what. I do know, those hundred million and growing are going to eventually tear down the innovators whatever you think about their “inevitability”, they have been abused and ignored so long, now suffering acutely in this pandemic.
We can throw all the money in the world at the innovators, but that will not save civilization if we insist on paying the non-innovators a less than living wage doing some of our most essential work.
The people you advocate for typically vote republican (i.e. against their own economic interests). This may be because they view their cultural interests more importantly than their economic interests. Since you work amongst working class whites, perhaps you could help enlighten them on the effects of their voting choices. Also, obtaining more education is more important than ever in a rapidly changing world. Finally, we are a capitalistic society which is very competitive which has given many a people an incredible life. Some people are just not economically valuable enough to enjoy this prosperity to your liking.
Like I said, ‘let them eat training.’
Education is indeed important. Mostly it seems what we teach kids in grade school is how to sit and be obedient. Half of kids in some systems don’t graduate, many of the rest are not prepared for higher ed, many with higher ed degrees are stuck in low pay jobs because there are fewer and fewer good paying jobs every year.
It used to be in America, one job per family made for a good, healthy, steady life. Now many can barely pay the bills with two adults working 4 or 5 part-time jobs between them. That is a recipe for civil unrest, and calling people “just not economically valuable enough to enjoy this prosperity” makes the likelihood of civil unrest all the more likely. I’m not justifying that unrest, I’m just being realistic. We don’t get to call 100 million Americans not worthy of prosperity and then expect that prosperity to last for any of us.
Also, Democrats need to get over that line that poor people too often vote against their own interests by voting Republican, because the economic prospects for half of America have gotten significantly worse for 40 years not matter who they vote for. Dems saying that is just Dems excusing their own party’s culpability in impoverishing so much of America.
This is a lot of what I am talking about. This is not mere Republican doing. This is Democrats too turning a blind eye for generations to the slow erosion of wages and benefits for most of America. It is not just in retail, it is also in Health Care, particularly in caring for the elderly and infirm. It is also in food production. On down the line. It is like an inverse relationship, the more essential it is to the functioning of civil society, the less you get paid.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/the-real-looting-in-america-is-the-walton-family-gao-report-details-how-taxpayers-subsidize-cruel-low-wages-of-corporate-giants.html
Pinpointing a reality denounced as “morally obscene” by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a new government study shows how some of the nation’s largest and most profitable corporations—including Walmart, McDonald’s, Dollar General, and Amazon—feast upon taxpayer money by paying their employees such low wages that huge numbers of those workers throughout the year are forced to rely on public assistance programs such as Medicaid and food assistance just to keep themselves and their families afloat.
OK, I read your link and it really reinforces one thing. The single thing that used to divide Ds and Rs: tax policy. Every D President since Jimmy Carter has implemented tax policy favorable to lower income earners at the expense of higher income earners.
I guess that would be taking money from the Waltons and their ilk and getting it to the 100 million you express concern for.
So, to find no difference between D and Rs in your posts is not reinforced by actual history. And in those years since Jimmy Carter there has been about 6 months where the Ds had complete control and out of that limited time came the most progressive change in healthcare since Medicare, also enacted during a time of full D control.
Your equivalency argument, again, does not reflect reality.
While I can only keep my fingers crossed regarding President-Elect Biden, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Trump are known quantities, and in that context, well said, Justice Anderson. Mr. McConnell is certainly the proper age for statesmanship (I’m 76 myself), but his actions and rhetoric reveal him to be the antithesis of a statesman. Instead, he has adopted the mean-spirited selfishness of the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Thank you, Justice Anderson, for your brief comments on Senator McConnell. As the son of retired attorney Douglas J. Peterson of Minneapolis, formerly serving the Anoka County region, I appreciate the manner in which you have communicated your concerns and only wish that more people could so dispassionately and clearly make cases that educate the public. You have refrained from vitriolic language and set an example for all of us. I appreciate your words and your wisdom.
Your definition of “vitriolic” must be different than mine. Hopefully THAT isn’t moderated although my previous reply did ask what Mitch was supposed to do (by himself) about the pandemic.
Over the weekend I listened to a long term D member of the Senate remark that in his first couple of terms in the Senate, McConnell was among those that could be reasoned with in search of a compromise.
Who knows if, in what will likely be his last term in office, he tries to remake his legacy into something more reasonable with a President he has known and worked with for 40+ years.
Or maybe I am just a fully deranged optimist…
Edward, I wouldn’t say that you are a “deranged optimist,” but Senator McConnell may be there for another twelve-plus years if his mind and health hold up.
He may continue to obstruct Democrats in the Senate and White House. He did this during the Obama administration, and throughout the Trump administration. He appears to have made up his mind to work only to appeal to extreme Republicans. I would like to see more mid-ground thinkers.
With luck, diplomacy and cooperation will retake in the Senate and House of Representatives. I’m not sure how prevalent these two qualities have ever been in either body. Younger political activists learn from their elders and from the broader community, as well as from partisan think tanks to which many flock in their youth following college and graduate school.
To hope that Sen McConnell will act with dignity and respect is to ignore the last decade, or more, under his leadership. Like so many on the right, he treats compromise like a sin. He’s not demonstrated the ability or inclination to treat others with respect. His ability to contradict himself in the name of political expediency is remarkable.
I hope I’m wrong, but I think Biden is in for a failed term if he thinks he can find a partner in his old friend Mitch. The Senate is not what it used to be.
Only an experienced judge could summarize so well. The only thing you didn’t mention was McConnell’s wife, our Transp Sec, and her family’s extensive China ‘mafia’ connection. This summary sb shared with Kentuckians, who for reasons most of us cannot fathom, voted to keep him in office…and with everyone anyone knows in GA, where the two Senate seats are in runoff in Dec. Voting for Ossof & Warnock will give DEMs back serious control, esp with VP elect Harris as the designated tie breaker. GA knows the country, and indeed the world, are watching carefully. Thankfully! ‘Course that hasn’t stopped Trump, Loeffler, Purdue, Collins and more from playing dirty, direct from the REP playbook (which every REP must not stray from!) So the GA DEMs need plenty of others helping keep the narrative honest. And we need $$$, too, cuz Mitchell McConnell keeps finding and spending vats of it in efforts to control the end result, rather than let voters decide. But it is possible Warnock & Ossof can win. Esp this year, after 4 hellish years under the Trump regime.
I know that a coda of hope is de rigueur but, meaning no disrespect to Justice Anderson, it’s just silly. I don’t know which Democratic senator Mr. Blaise was listening to, but I would guess it is one of the many so deeply invested in the old norms of Gentlemen’s Club civility that he simply is incapable of recognizing his “distinguished colleagues” across the aisle as the sociopaths that they are. What I have read about Mr. McConnell’s history in politics indicates that he was as absolutely cynical and corrupt at the beginning as he is now: however he can serve power and be rewarded for it. So I don’t intend to invest any energy in hoping for his redemption. If we as a nation are to be saved, it will have to be despite Mr. McConnell.
You think that such an experienced judge would know that there needs to be proof behind any accusations. The Judge says that McConnell has failed to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. Instead of offering ANY proof or examples – maybe because there are none – he goes off on a litany of Trumpian style personal insults that rile most people.
If you dislike McConnell, okay. But politics can bring out the worst in people just as many really dislike the oft lying hair salon, multiple mansion owning, multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi.
The Judge is retired and entitled to his opinion. But from what was written here, thankfully he’s not on the bench anymore and makes me wonder how someone with such a disdainful temperament (when not even provoked) ever got to be a judge, let alone our MN Supreme Court.
The judge’s article wasn’t disdainful. I thought he showed great reserve and class. It never ceases to amaze me how REPs jump down DEMs throats for writing honest & fair critiques…while they continue to blast and disparage and spread lies about anyone & everyone who disagrees with them. What’s with that?? My suggestion to all of you is to step back, take a deep breath and look long and hard in the mirror. Because the hatred, raging, fear mongering, divisiveness, cruelty, vindictiveness, pettiness, destruction and more have become the established ‘modus operandi for the R. Made ever more so by Trump the Terrible. For individuals to blast others continuously for doing far less than they themselves do is…immature and disingenuous. It is also learned behaviour, which means it can be unlearned. This country can’t begin to heal and recover until the head of the snake is removed. Thankfully that happened Nov 3rd. So moving forward you and your ilk can become part of the solution, or continue to be part of the massively dysfunctional problem. Give this serious thought. We cannot and will not continue on the same path: the people have spoken. Choose wisely. Start by changing your knee jerk behaviours.
Mr. Woodruff,
While you started off well, diplomacy in your response wasn’t your forte and served only to cast the other person into a defensive and antagonized stature. While you felt antagonized by what Mr. Peterson said, it is best to refrain from adding to the fire. Striving toward diplomacy, regardless of who we are or from where we have come, is a good cause. Please strive to avoid using objectification and work on educating those with whom you disagree on your point of view in a gracious and graceful manner.
I learned this from Brother Basil Rothweiler, FSC, the lead Christian Brother at De La Salle Catholic College Preparatory High School in Minneapolis during the 1970’s and 1980’s. I am not a Catholic, but find some of the Catholic culture to be very helpful. Brother Basil was very cheerful and encouraging. He walked as though he was floating on air, and his Catholic robes made this all the more interesting as we couldn’t see his shoes.
At times, I used to be very abrupt when I spoke to people, but have always sought to improve my style of communication. It takes work. We have far too much animosity among some members of all political parties. If we would reserve our words for sharing what is the minimal necessary comments to get our points across, without going full throttle on our emotional response to what other people have said or done, we would be in a much better place as a community.
However, I do agree with you: Justice Anderson’s comments were not disdainful. They were dispassionately ordered and said.
The level of corruption practiced by McConnell, his wife, and the Trump Clan is astounding.
And the way they are so obviously tied in with the Russian Mafia is blatant. Trump’s condos
and hotels and golf resorts are nothing but vehicles for bribery. McConnell’s ties to Putin’s
partner Dereshovsky come by way of the aluminum milling project in Kentucky – a business with
no profits or useful enterprise in sight other than acting as a funnel for money to McConnell
and his political machine.
https://themoscowproject.org/dispatch/mitch-mcconnell-russia-sanctions-and-rusals-investment-in-kentucky/
Thank you, Justice Anderson for yet another exquisitely well-reasoned critique and analysis.
(And to think I once assumed your clerks wrote your opinion in a published case about a
will contest! Uff da.)
David K. Porter
Hope is not a strategy. Forget hope, just plan and execute a devastating attack that sweeps American Fascism into the dustbin of history. Smashing Fascism (non violently so long as that’s possible) in America is the objective, nothing less is acceptable. McConnell has revealed his true nature, “hope” is irrelevant.