Tag: Mitch McConnell

Trump’s Mitch: McConnell Is The Most Disliked Senator

Mitch McConnell is the most unpopular person in the entire United States Senate.

A new poll from Morning Consult found that the Republican majority leader from Kentucky has the highest disapproval rating out of the 100 senators in the legislative body. McConnell has a 50 percent disapproval rating, with only 36 percent of respondents saying they approve of the job he is doing.

McConnell is the only senator in the entire survey whose home state voters registered a disapproval rate as high as 50 percent.

View the complete April 28 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Senate buzzsaw awaits 2020 progressive proposals

The Senate is emerging as a significant roadblock for progressive policies being championed by 2020 presidential candidates, even if Democrats win the White House next year.

As Democrats propose massive political and policy overhauls, the GOP-controlled Senate is quickly becoming a legislative buzzsaw to block progressives’ top priorities like the Green New Deal, “Medicare for All” and expanding the Supreme Court.

“The Senate is absolutely crucial. It’s not enough to, you know, elect an inspiring president, we’ve got to also elect an inspiring Senate,” said Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, a progressive activist group.

View the complete April 24 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Traumatized American Women, Study Shows—And May Have Made Them Less Safe

The Supreme Court Justice’s confirmation hearings left Americans fearful for women’s rights and safety and left many men less likely to believe a woman’s allegations of assault

More than six months after Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, a new study shows how women and men were affected by revelations that the judge had been accused of sexual assault.

The non-partisan research firm PerryUndem surveyed about 1,300 people from across the country, finding that more Americans believe Kavanaugh’s accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, than did directly after the hearings—and that most believe Kavanaugh lied under oath about the alleged assault.

One in four women told the company that watching the hearings in September had caused them to re-experience past trauma. The number was larger for Latin American women, at one in three.

View the complete April 16 article by Julia Conley on the Common Dreams website here.

President looms large over McConnell-Pelosi spending ceiling talks

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to build a functional working relationship with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as the two tackle the mammoth task of winning a deal on fiscal spending ceilings for the next year.

McConnell says the deal is his top legislative priority after the April recess, but achieving it won’t be easy.

Democrats are insisting on parity between defense and nondefense spending, arguing any hike for the Pentagon must be equal to that for domestic spending.

View the complete April 17 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

How McConnell is Killing the Senate

Congress has recessed for two weeks without passing a desperately-needed disaster relief bill. Why not? Because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t want to anger Donald Trump by adding money for Puerto Rico that Democrats have sought but Trump doesn’t want.

America used to have a Senate. But under McConnell, what was once known as the worlds greatest deliberative body has become a partisan lap dog.

Recently McConnell used his Republican majority to cut the time for debating Trump’s court appointees from 30 hours to two – thereby enabling Republicans to ram through even more Trump judges.

View the complete April 14 by Robert Reich on his blog here.

McConnell lays out agenda as House bills pile up

Senate Republicans are coming under fire from Democrats over the pileup of House-passed bills and realizing they need to take action beyond confirming President Trump’s nominees.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to get the appropriations process — which started off well last year and then stalled — back on track and rekindle talk of an infrastructure package, despite broad pessimism among his GOP colleagues about finding a way to pay for it.

Republicans say they expect movement on the National Defense Authorization Act, reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act and an overhaul of the National Flood Insurance Program.

View the complete April 14 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans are ‘determined not to lose women’ in 2020

Senate majority leader talks about having GOP senators run their own campaigns

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Republican senators on the ballot in 2020 can attract support from suburban voters, especially women, by portraying themselves as a firewall against Democratic policies.

“We all know why it happened,” the Kentucky Republican said of the electoral shifts that enabled Democrats to win control of the House in 2018. “We got crushed in the suburbs. We lost college graduates and women in the suburbs, which led in the House to losses in suburban Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Charleston, South Carolina, Philadelphia.”

“We’re determined not to lose women, certainly not by 19 points, and college graduates, in our Senate races, and I don’t think we will,” McConnell said, speaking with a small group of print reporters in the Senate’s Strom Thurmond Room after the last floor votes before a two-week recess.

View the complete April 11 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

Senate goes nuclear again, speeding up Donald Trump’s nominations

GOP senators voted Wednesday to effectively change the rules by setting a new precedent on debate time

Senate Republicans moved ahead with deploying the “nuclear option” again Wednesday, this time following through on an effort to cut down on debate time for most of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

In an exercise that had far less suspense than when then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, made the move back in 2013, the Senate voted, 48-51, overturning the ruling of the presiding officer and setting a new precedent declaring that the remaining debate time for Jeffrey Kessler to be an assistant secretary of Commerce was two hours. A “no” vote was to overturn the presiding officer and establish the two-hour limit.

Senate rules had allowed for a maximum of 30 hours after cutting off debate, so the cut in deliberation time is drastic.

View the complete April 3 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

Conservative Court Packing

There has been a recent spate of attention to court packing, stemming largely from remarks by former Attorney General Eric Holder and other prominent progressives about adding justices to the Supreme Court.

While these comments highlighted the need for a broader discussion about court reform, the conversation they generated has lacked important context: Court packing is not a theoretical possibility, but rather an ongoing effort by conservatives happening right now.

The phrase court packing hearkens back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts to alter the makeup of the Supreme Court in the face of the court’s repeated decisions striking down his New Deal legislation. Roosevelt’s plan, which would have added up to six justices to the court, engendered significant opposition and was never enacted.

View the complete April 3 article by Sam Berger on the Center for American Progress website here.

Mitch McConnell shouted down in his hometown by angry protesters

While at an event in his hometown at the University of Louisville, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was greeted by angry protesters.

A group advocating for climate change showed opposition against the Senator.

“One protester, identifying herself as a McConnell constituent, shouted at the Republican leader: ‘If you expect our leaders, why don’t you stand with us?’ The demonstration began as McConnell praised students on campus,” a report said.

View the complete April 2 article by Dominique Jackson of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.