Category: US Senate

McConnell shoots down Manchin’s voting compromise

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Thursday that Republicans will oppose a compromise election reform proposal put forward by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

“I would make this observation about the revised version … all Republicans I think will oppose that as well if that were to be what surfaced on the floor,” McConnell told reporters, referring to Manchin’s proposal.

McConnell’s comments, which came during a press conference with GOP senators railing against the For the People Act, are the latest signal that the election bill will fail during a procedural vote next week due to a GOP filibuster. Continue reading.

For Republicans, ‘Crisis’ Is the Message as the Outrage Machine Ramps Up

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With next year’s midterm elections seen as a referendum on Democratic rule, Republicans are seeking to create a sense of instability and overreach, diverting focus from their own divisions.

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders would like everyone to know that the nation is in crisis.

There is an economic crisis, they say, with rising prices and overly generous unemployment benefits; a national security crisis; a border security crisis, with its attendant homeland security crisis, humanitarian crisis, and public health crisis; and a separate energy crisis.

Pressed this week on whether the nation was really so beleaguered, the No. 2 Republican in the House, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, thought of still more crises: anti-Semitism in the Democratic ranks, “yet another crisis,” he asserted, and a labor shortage crisis. Continue reading.

Biden White House video highlights infrastructure nightmare in Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky: ‘We deserve roads and bridges’

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it abundantly clear that his goal is to do everything he can to obstruct President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, and that includes coming out against Biden’s infrastructure proposals. The Biden White House, meanwhile, has launched a video series that shows why an infrastructure bill is desperately needed, and the first video in the series addresses infrastructure problems in McConnell’s state: Kentucky.

Journalist Daniel Desrochers, reporting for Kentucky.com on June 14, explains, “As moderate Democrats and Republicans have been at loggerheads in coming up with an agreement on how much money to allocate to fixing roads, bridges and drinking water — among other projects — the White House made videos highlighting the lack of broadband access and clean drinking water in Eastern Kentucky. One follows Danielle Adams of Pikeville as she heads into town to get online when her wi-fi goes down in her home. In the other, BarbiAnn Miner in Martin County shows off the dirty tap water in her kitchen sink and some of the decrepit roads and bridges in Martin County.”

In the video, Miner says, “People talk about: Eastern Kentucky is poor, and they don’t really have anything. Well, how are we ever going to have anything if our government won’t invest in our infrastructure?…. We’re people too. We’re American citizens. And we deserve access to clean, affordable drinking water…. We deserve roads and bridges.” Continue reading.

Top Republican thinks China is going to harvest DNA of American Olympians to create super soldiers

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The make-up Olympics are headed to Japan this year, but next year Beijing will have the winter Olympic games and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is very concerned that the Chinese government will harvest American Olympian DNA to create super soldiers. 

In a letter that Cotton sent to President Joe Biden demanding to know what precautions are being taken and how to protect Americans from being harvested by the Chinese. 

“First, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operates the world’s most invasive domestic surveillance system. Chinese authorities closely monitor internet traffic within the country and block and censor online information that the Party views as adverse to its grip on power. Continue reading.

Senate on collision course over Trump DOJ subpoenas

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Senate Democrats are quickly running into a GOP buzzsaw as they probe the Trump-era Justice Department’s collection of lawmaker records.

Reports that the Department of Justice (DOJ) under former President Trumpobtained lawmaker communications data, and similar info on former White House Counsel Don McGahn, have sparked a days-long fury that’s sent Attorney General Merrick Garland scrambling to contain the fallout.

As part of the fierce backlash from Capitol Hill, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee launched a probe this week and are threatening to subpoena former Attorneys General William Barr and Jeff Sessions if they don’t testify voluntarily. Continue reading.

Senate passes bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday after Johnson backs down

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NOTE: We’re posting this after the holiday has become a reality so people know where the hold up was.

The measure is now expected to move quickly through the House

Juneteenth is on its way to becoming a federal holiday. Hours after Sen. Ron Johnsonannounced he would drop his objections Tuesday, the Senate passed the bill. 

The day commemorates June 19, 1865, when slaves in Galveston, Texas learned they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years earlier. Celebrated in 47 states and the District of Columbia, Juneteenth has long unofficially marked the day slavery in America truly ended.

Last year, in the wake of millions marching under the Black Lives Matters banner following the killing of George Floyd, a bipartisan group tried to get Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, introduced the measure in the House, while Edward Markey, D-Mass., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, made the push in the Senate. Continue reading.

White House to Democrats: Get ready to go it alone on infrastructure

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White House officials told House Democrats Tuesday to get ready to go it alone on infrastructure if bipartisan talks founder, setting the stage for party leaders to tap an obscure budget procedure to move President Biden‘s top domestic priority without Republican support.

Huddling in person in the Capitol for the first time since the COVID-19 crisis hit, members of the House Democratic Caucus were briefed by Steve Ricchetti, a top adviser to Biden, and Shalanda Young, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, who said they would give Senate negotiators seven to 10 days to reach a bipartisan agreement, according to Democrats in the meeting.

If no deal is reached in that time, the officials said, Democrats will gauge the progress of those talks and charge ahead with a partisan package if need be. Continue reading.

Senate confirms D.C. Circuit nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Merrick Garland ‘

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The Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday to the influential federal appeals court in Washington, elevating a trial court judge who is considered a contender for a potential opening on the Supreme Court.

Three Republicans joined Democrats in approving Jackson’s nomination in a 53-to-44 vote.

Jackson, 50, was nominated in March as part of Biden’s first slate of judicial picks from diverse personal and professional backgrounds. She fills the vacancy left on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who served on the bench for 24 years. Continue reading.

In Congress, Republicans Shrug at Warnings of Democracy in Peril

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As G.O.P. legislatures move to curtail voting rules, congressional Democrats say authoritarianism looms, but Republicans dismiss the concerns as politics as usual.

WASHINGTON — Senator Christopher S. Murphy concedes that political rhetoric in the nation’s capital can sometimes stray into hysteria, but when it comes to the precarious state of American democracy, he insisted he was not exaggerating the nation’s tilt toward authoritarianism.

“Democrats are always at risk of being hyperbolic,” said Mr. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “I don’t think there’s a risk when it comes to the current state of democratic norms.”

After the norm-shattering presidency of Donald J. Trump, the violence-inducing bombast over a stolen election, the pressuring of state vote counters, the Capitol riot and the flood of voter curtailment laws rapidly being enacted in Republican-run states, Washington has found itself in an anguished state. Continue reading.

McConnell signals GOP would block Biden Supreme Court pick in ’24

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled Monday that Republicans, if they win back control of the upper chamber, wouldn’t advance a Supreme Court nominee if a vacancy occurred in 2024, the year of the next presidential election. 

“I think it’s highly unlikely — in fact, no, I don’t think either party, if it were different from the president, would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election,” McConnell told radio host Hugh Hewitt.

McConnell was asked if a GOP-controlled Senate would take the same tack in 2024 that it did in 2016, when they refused to give Merrick Garland, former President Obama’s final Supreme Court pick, a hearing or a vote on his nomination to fill the vacancy created by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Continue reading.