Tag: Mitch McConnell

Mueller sounds alarm on Russian meddling. So what has Congress done about it?

Russian interference is ‘among the most serious’ challenges to American democracy, ex-special counsel says

Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s testimony before two House committees Wednesday brought a new focus on foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election, and highlighted what has — and has not — been done to prevent a recurrence in the next election less than 16 months away.

Mueller, who led the FBI in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, told both the House Judiciary and Intelligence panels that among the challenges to democracy he’s seen in his career, “the Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious.”

“Much more needs to be done in order to protect against this,” he told House Intelligence members.

View the complete July 25 article by Bridget Bowman on The Roll Call website here.

New study finds states need more funding to protect elections ⁠— funding McConnell won’t allow

AlterNet logoA report released last week from the Brennan Center for Justice, the R Street Institute, the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, and the Alliance for Securing Democracy sounds an alarm about the urgent need for federal funding to secure state elections systems ahead of the 2020 election.

Choosing Alabama, Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania as key states representing different regions, with varied population sizes to extrapolate from, the authors find that federal intervention is critical. “Elections are the pillar of American democracy, and, as we saw in 2016 and 2018, foreign governments will continue to target them,” the authors write. “States cannot counter these adversaries alone, nor should they have to. But at a time when free and fair elections are increasingly under attack, they can, with additional federal funding, safeguard them.” They say that while they “have limited their review to a sampling of six states, it is clear that the other 44 states and the District of Columbia have similar unfunded needs.” Continue reading “New study finds states need more funding to protect elections ⁠— funding McConnell won’t allow”

Pence’s deputy press secretary makes mind-boggling argument that Elaine Chao is a better immigrant than Ilhan Omar

AlterNet logoDuring a “Make America Great Again” rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump doubled down on his racist assertion that four congresswomen of color should leave the United States and reiterated his disdain for Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota while the crowd chanted, “Send her back, send her back.” Trump’s critics have been pointing out that prominent Republicans such as First Lady Melania Trump and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao are immigrants — and Vice President Mike Pence’s deputy press secretary, Darin Miller, is responding with a mind-boggling claim that Chao is a good immigrant while Omar is not.

Mother Jones’ Matt Cohen is reporting that he received an e-mail from Miller stating that while Chao (who is originally from Mainland China and is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) “worked hard and assimilated” after coming to the United States, Omar “seems content to criticize America at every turn.”

Miller, according to Cohen, wrote to the Mother Jones reporter to explain that he believed he misconstrued comments that Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, made during a Fox News appearance on Monday. Short, defending Trump, insisted that the president can’t have “racist motives” because he appointed a Chinese immigrant to an important position in his administration.

View the complete July 18 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

McConnell stumped after reporter asks if it’s OK to tell his immigrant wife to ‘go back to your country’

AlterNet logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday refused to condemn President Donald Trump’s racist attack against progressive members of Congress — suggesting instead that both Democrats and Republicans alike needed to tone down their rhetoric.

During a press conference, McConnell was asked if it would be racist to use similar language towards his wife Elaine Chao, who is currently the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

“You’re married to an immigrant naturalized citizen,” a reporter noted. “If someone were to say to her, ‘you should go back to your country’ because of her criticisms of federal policies, wouldn’t you consider that a racist attack?”

View the complete July 16 article by Eric W. Dolan from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

 

Republicans scramble to contain Trump fallout

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday sought to dispel the uproar over President Trump’s controversial tweets targeting four nonwhite Democratic lawmakers, but also defended the president by declaring he is not a racist. 

McConnell tried to quell the controversy that has raged since Sunday when Trump tweeted that four minority Democratic lawmakers should “go back” to their home countries — even though all of them are U.S. citizens — by calling for a broad ceasefire in Washington. 

“The president is not a racist,” McConnell responded after reporters pressed him Tuesday afternoon on whether Trump’s tweets were racist or whether the GOP leader himself would ever use such language. 

View the complete July 16 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Your regular reminder that McConnell abetted Russian election interference — and is doing it again

AlterNet logoRunning interference for the occupier of the Oval Office, the execrable Rep. Steve Scalise is attacking Joe Biden, saying “Russian interference in America’s elections happened on Obama and Biden’s watch.” That’s “irrefutable” he says, pointing to a craptacular 2017 CBS News report from 2017 that vaguely references the “political difficulties” President Obama faced in addressing Russian hacking without once mention Mitch McConnell.

Those political difficulties were entirely of McConnell’s making. He’s the guy who, in reporter Greg Miller’s retelling, was fully briefed on everything the intelligence committee knew about Russian interference. He was told that Russia was intervening to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. And McConnell told the CIA, “You’re telling us that Russia is trying to help elect Trump. If you try to come forward with this, I’m not going to sign onto any sort of public statement that would condemn Russian interference. But I will condemn you and the Obama administration for trying to mess up this election.” Continue reading “Your regular reminder that McConnell abetted Russian election interference — and is doing it again”

‘There is a strategy’: Noam Chomsky dismantles the Trump-McConnell Republican party ‘con game’

AlterNet logoEven for Donald Trump, the remarks were almost staggering in their density. Last month, in an exclusive interview with the Financial Times, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Western liberalism has “outlived its purpose,” adding that “it has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.” When asked during the G20 summit in Osaka if he agreed, Trump offered this gleaming ruby: “[Putin] sees what’s going on—I guess if you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look, and what’s happening in San Francisco and a couple of other cities, which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

Trying to deduce any kind of grand strategy from a president who confuses the West with California and believes the moon is part of Mars can feel like a fool’s errand, if not “the purest acid satire.” But as Noam Chomsky argues in an interview with Truthout this week, “there is a strategy”—one that has empowered the far right across the globe and ultimately endangers human life on earth. If Ronald Reagan’s presidency was a tragedy, he speculates, then Trump’s is history repeating itself as farce.

“It’s understandable that the farce elicits ridicule, and no doubt some are relishing the coming photo-op of Trump and Boris Johnson upholding Anglo-American civilization,” claims the celebrated linguist and philosopher. “But for the world, it’s dead serious, from the destruction of the environment and the growing threats of terminal nuclear war to a long list of other crimes and horrors.”

View the complete July 7 article by Jacob Sugarman of Truthout and Noam Chomsky on the AlterNet website here.

Senate passes $4.6 billion emergency border bill after rejecting House version

Axios logoThe Senate on Wednesday voted 84-8 to pass a $4.6 billion bill that would appropriate funding for humanitarian aid for migrants and additional security measures at the southern border, after rejecting a House version of the bill that would impose greater restrictions on migrant detention centers.

The big picture: Democrats and Republicans have backed two separate plans to deal with reports of dangerous and unsanitary living conditions at migrant facilities on the southern border. The House and Senate must now reconcile the two bills or find an alternative solution before Congress leaves for its July 4 recess, with the Department of Health and Human Services warning that it could run out of funding to house migrant children by the end of the month.

The Senate version of the bill allocates $2.88 billion for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency responsible for taking care of migrant children. It also provides funding to the Defense Department and agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to carry out President Trump’s immigration policies, per the New York Times.

  • Trump supports the Senate bill and has threatened to veto the House package.

View the complete June 26 article by Zachary Basu on the Axios website here.

Former White House counsel: I’m ‘not aware of any situation like’ Transportation Secretary Chao’s conflicts of interest

AlterNet logoIn recent weeks, the term “conflict of interest” has been used a lot in connection with Elaine Chao, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Trump Administration. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and a June 10 report in Politico found that she used her position to help create a pathway for transportation projects in her husband’s state, Kentucky. Discussing Chao’s activities with Yahoo Finance, ethics lawyer Virginia Canter asserted that the conflict of interest is enormous.

Previously, Canter served as a White House associate counsel under two previous presidents: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Presently, Canter is chief ethics counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — and she said of Chao, “I am not aware of any situation like this.”

The Wall Street Journal, on May 28, reported that Chao still owns shares in a company that provides construction materials, Vulcan Materials Co., more than a year after promising to give them up. Further, Chao’s family owns an American shipping company with deep business and political ties in China.

View the complete June 25 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

9/11 first responders slam Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham for failing to renew compensation fund: ‘We’re just not going to take your crap’

Two 9/11 first responders lambasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina for failing to renew a compensation fund for 9/11 victims during a CNN appearance on Wednesday.

Interviewed by CNN’s John Berman for “New Day,” John Feal and Brian McGuire — both of whom were first responders at the World Trade Center in New York City following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — asserted that neither McConnell nor Graham is doing enough to help 9/11 first responders receive the health care they need.

Feal, founder of the FeelGood Foundation, praised comedian Jon Stewart for his efforts on behalf of 9/11 first responders. And Feal noted that he has attended countless funerals since 9/11, saying, “I’ve been to over 180 of these funerals. This is painful. This is sad. And I’m tired of listening to excuses.”

View the complete June 12 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.