If you have to hurt other people in order to feel powerful, you are an extremely weak individual. – Bobby J. Mattingly

Today’s independent commentary deals with these people/issues:

• Trump & Lewis
• Heals Act
• Trump’s Polls

TRUMP & LEWIS:

Several sources, including the Associated Press (AP), are reporting that U.S. Representative John Lewis is the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the US Capitol Rotunda. Lewis died July 17 at the age of 80.

The AP reported:

In a solemn display of bipartisan unity, congressional leaders praised Democratic Rep. John Lewis as a moral force for the nation in a Capitol Rotunda memorial service rich with symbolism and punctuated by the booming, recorded voice of the late civil rights icon.

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife paid respects, as did former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, did not pay his respects at the Capitol. The AP reported that Trump was “Notably absent from the ceremonies.”

Trump could still show up and pay his respects today (Tuesday). He should. The President is supposed to be the leader. He should be one. No matter what happened to Trump and Lewis in the past, Trump should be an adult and pay his respects. That’s what we do in this country.

I imagine his campaign and inner circle have told him the same thing.

HEALS ACT:

Reuters is reporting that the Republican leadership of the U.S. Senate has introduced its proposal for the next coronavirus relief package, a $1 trillion plan called the Heals Act.

The big difference in this plan and the Democratic House bill is the price tag. The House bill is $3 trillion. The Senate plan is $1 trillion.

According to Reuters, the Republican plan would reduce the expanded unemployment benefit from the current $600 per week, which expires on Friday, to $200 a week. That plan would expire in two months. The House version keeps the $600 flowing through January 2021.

There will be another round of stimulus checks under both plans.

There are a lot of differences to work out. In the meantime let the jockeying begin!

Compare by plans by clicking HERE.

TRUMP’S POLLS:

Face it, after 2016 nobody should trust Presidential polling. I know some conservatives who wrote an “obituary” for Trump’s election early in the evening on election night and said some nasty things about him, only to now embrace him like he was the second coming.

Yesterday I posted a photo of Real Clear Politics polling in six battleground states that showed Joe Biden leading by an average of six points.

Today, Trump said, “We have polls that show me leading in almost every swing state and substantially in other states by even more than I won in ’16.”

A nice way to energize your supporters is just flat-out lie to them.

Then there’s an opinion in the Los Angeles Times from Jonah Goldberg saying maybe the reason for Biden leading in so many polls is:

The theory holds that there is a large reserve army of secret Trump voters who are afraid, in this time of cancel culture, to state their preference, and that’s why the polls are so lopsided.

Yes, that’s the ticket!

I don’t think Goldberg has seen the MAGA folks on my personal Facebook account – they are not afraid of much – so I doubt a pollster scares them.

I think at this time the election is Biden’s to lose – and he can lose it. If he can play keep away for another 98 days, he’s elected.

Then we’ll get to hear about conspiracies, and vote by mail fraud, and sex rings run out of pizza shops that all contributed to Trump losing.

Then we wait to see if the Trumps leave peacefully on January 20.

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