Posted originally on the CTH on April 5, 2023 | Sundance 

Sometimes the apropos of the thing is just too much fun to notice.  Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is missing in action ever since his slip and fall/concussion a few weeks ago (insert shades of prior HRC issues here).  The conspicuous absence of media questioning his continued absence is a little odd for a DC that loves to notice such things.

Meanwhile, sniffing the possibility of enhanced career aspirations amid the political winds of incapable McConnell, Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie, sees Ron DeSantis as a vector to electoral elevation.  Except, there’s a funny thing.

While Erin Perrine of Team DeSantis is quick to promote the endorsement for her managed Florida governor, a review of Representative Massie’s Twitter rapid-fire messaging doesn’t show the endorsement.   Thirsty DeSantis, with slipping polls, contrasts against a teeth-clenched Massie with political aspirations….  We laugh, because it’s, well, perfect!

Meanwhile, moments ago, in other contextual sunlight, Fox News human cabbage patch doll Bret Baier, leads off the GOPe/Murdoch Fox News narrative engineering with the 6:00pm promotion of Glenn Youngkin. LOLOL… These cats are just too transparently funny.

Am I being a little hard on the “conservative leader” Thomas Massie, probably. But the reason is really breaking the cycle of insufferable battered conservative abuse.

Massie was an attendee at the Four Seasons DeSantis three-day donor retreat last month in Palm Beach.  [See tweet from event] Apparently the allure of the Sea Island billionaire funding mechanism can permeate fiscal senses. I digress…

Additionally, Massie likes to rail against government spending, even recently using his opposition to the 2020 Paycheck Protection Program, as an example of his conservative bona-fides.

Now, it is true the urgently rushed PPP program was abused by some 10% of the employers who used it as a tool to defraud the U.S. government amid the urgent spending during the COVID-19 lockdowns and crisis.

However, 90% of the PPP program went directly to honest and earnest small businesses who were shut down and needed a lifeline to help their employees.

When President Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin realized that employees of small businesses were going to get crushed by the lockdowns, most of which were determined in scale, scope and duration by the states, they knew something rapid and urgent was needed to support those employees. Big corporations could take the hit, but small businesses were extremely exposed. The Paycheck Protection Program was the way to help ‘Main Street’.

The PPP program was targeted directly to banks, small banks, local banks and credit unions that support the small businesses. In a brilliant bit of administrative red-tape cutting, Trump and Mnuchin used the FDIC program to backstop the banks and give the banks the ability to lend to the small businesses without risk.

Small businesses were able to go to their local bank and get an immediate infusion of cash to keep their payrolls afloat, while the FDIC program was used as a mechanism to send the funds to the banks. Tens of millions of American employees of small businesses benefited from the continuation of their paychecks during the lockdowns. Without that PPP program, millions of lower to middle-income workers would have no paycheck.

Yes, there was fraud and abuse by lying, scheming and conniving business owners who took advantage of the PPP program for their own financial gains. However, that doesn’t mean the PPP program didn’t protect and support tens of millions of people.

High-horse Thomas Massie would have allowed those people who live paycheck-to-paycheck and are employed by small businesses to be crushed without income. Thankfully, Trump and Mnuchin, together with support from congress – avoided that catastrophic outcome. The quick thinking about how to cut through the bureaucracy was a net benefit.

So yeah, Massie and his principles that would have allowed people to go hungry, can go spit.