The new year started for many of us with the long-debated $600 in stimulus money from the federal government landing in our bank accounts. It’s an appreciated return on our own taxes paid into the government’s coffers, and so I personally give thanks for it.
But I also can’t deny that the amount was a little anti-climatic—especially since Trump had introduced the last-minute false hope that we could get $2000 checks as part of the COVID-19 relief legislation, despite fully knowing that his own party under the guidance of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would never pass such a bill.
That discomfited feeling Americans have been left with, knowing that our leaders are only willing to give us a miserly $600 after months of a pandemic that has upended life as usual, seems to be why some unknown assailants vandalized the homes of McConnell and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi this weekend.
On Saturday, McConnell’s home in Louisville, Kentucky was found graffitied with the words “Weres [sic] My Money” and “Mitch Kills Poor People.” The Senate Majority Leader described this as evidence of a “radical tantrum,” according to CNN.
“Vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society. My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook. We just hope our neighbors in Louisville aren’t too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum,” McConnell said in a statement about the graffiti.
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That about captures exactly how McConnell thinks of the American people—as children who he can dismiss at will, like when he called $2000 checks for a beleaguered American public suffering from months of job losses and economic insecurity “universal cash giveaways.”
McConnell wasn’t the only comfortably situated member of Congress to get some graffitied heat over the weekend. One of Pelosi’s homes, located in the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco, was vandalized on New Years Day.
From ABC 7 News:
The graffiti was found on the garage door of Pelosi’s home overnight with the phrases “$2K”, “Cancel rent!” and “We want everything.”
As of early Friday afternoon, the garage door was covered with black garbage bags.
The vandals also left fake blood and what appears to be a pig head outside the House Speaker’s San Francisco home.
Pelosi has made no comment on the vandalization of her home, though reports are that she was in Washington D.C. at the time when it happened. It’s wild, but somehow typical, that the Speaker was the one treated with the more gruesome gift of a pig head, though she and the Democratic party had been pushing relentlessly for higher stimulus payments and the road block to giving us $2000 was from the McConnell-controlled Republican Senate.
Police in Louisville and San Francisco are investigating the incidents, and both McConnell and Pelosi will of course survive these mild markings on their properties. Meanwhile, survival for the rest of us in America continues to hinge on Congress’ ability to work together for the good of the people.
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