Tag: Mitch McConnell

8 million forced into poverty since McConnell let relief expire: studies

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The authors of two separate poverty studies out of three top universities said Thursday that their findings make the unmistakable case for more federal economic aid for families struggling to make ends meet during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Seven months after Congress passed the CARES Act, which included expanded unemployment benefits and one-time direct payments of $1,200 for many adults and $500 per child, the package’s positive impact on poverty levels have already been reversed, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy and one out of the University of Chicago and Notre Dame.

While the number of people living in poverty fell by about four million after the CARES Act was passed, the Columbia study found that eight million more Americans are now poor than were in May—signaling that the pandemic has plunged more people into poverty than before the crisis. Continue reading.

McConnell shoots down $1.8 trillion coronavirus deal, breaking with Trump

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday shot down the prospect of a coronavirus deal totaling between $1.8 trillion and $2.2 trillion — the goalposts of the current talks between Democrats and the White House.

McConnell’s comments, made to reporters in Kentucky, underscore the divisions between President Trump and Senate Republicans on a fifth coronavirus package, with the GOP leader preparing to force a vote on a $500 billion bill next week.

“I don’t think so. That’s where the administration is willing to go. My members think half a trillion dollars, highly targeted, is the best way to go,” McConnell said, asked about the prospect of a deal totally between $1.8 trillion and $2.2 trillion. Continue reading.

How McConnell and the Senate Helped Trump Set Records in Appointing Judges

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is widely credited with holding the seat for President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court appointee and shepherding through his second. But McConnell’s crowning achievement may extend past the Supreme Court.

When he took office, Trump had more than 100 vacancies to fill in the lower courts, including 17 in the U.S. courts of appeals — all of them lifetime appointments. The Supreme Court hears around 80 cases a year, while the courts of appeals handle tens of thousands of cases annually — often making them the last word in most cases that impact the lives of Americans.

“They are the ones that judge all your disputes,” Trump said in a March 2018 speech. “They judge on what’s fair on the environment and what’s not fair.” Continue reading.

Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group People of Praise

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While Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has faced questions about how her Catholic faith might influence her jurisprudence, she has not spoken publicly about her involvement in People of Praise, a small Christian group founded in the 1970s and based in South Bend, Ind.

Barrett, a federal appellate judge, has disclosed serving on the board of a network of private Christian schools affiliated with the group. The organization, however, has declined to confirm that she is a member. In recent years, it removed from its website editions of a People of Praise magazine — first those that included her name and photograph and then all archives of the magazine itself.

Barrett has had an active role in the organization, as have her parents, according to documents and interviews that help fill out a picture of her involvement with a group that keeps its teachings and gatherings private. Continue reading.

Anxious for a Lifeline, the U.S. Economy Is Left to Sink or Swim

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President Trump cut off negotiations over a new aid package on Tuesday. Economists of all stripes agree that could be a costly mistake.

Here is the situation the U.S. economy faces, a month before Election Day: Job growth is stalling. Layoffs are mounting. And no more help is coming, at least not right away.

American households and businesses have gone two months without the enhanced unemployment benefits, low-interest loans and other programs that helped prop up the economy in the spring. And now, after President Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he was cutting off stimulus negotiations until after the election, the wait will go on at least another month — and very likely until the next presidential term starts in 2021.

It could be a dangerous delay. Continue reading.

After Republican COVID-19 positives, Senate to remain out until Oct. 19

McConnell previously said he expected senators to come back to Washington on Monday

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Saturday that he will seek permission for the Senate to remain out for two weeks instead of resuming work Monday, but hearings on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett will continue as scheduled.

“On Monday, I intend to obtain a consent agreement for the Senate to meet in pro forma sessions for the next two weeks. Previously-scheduled floor activity will be rescheduled until after October 19th,” the Kentucky Republican said in a statement.

McConnell said Friday in Kentucky he expected senators to come back to Washington Oct. 5, despite uncertainty surrounding their exposure to COVID-19 in the wake of the positive diagnoses of President Donald Trump and Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. Since then, two more GOP senators, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, revealed positive tests for the virus. Continue reading.

Mitch McConnell’s legacy is a conservative Supreme Court shaped by his calculated audacity

Unless Democrats win both the White House and the Senate in November, abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is about to finish his project of remaking the federal judiciary from top to bottom. 

The impact of that achievement will outlive the 78-year-old Kentuckian, making it the biggest piece of his large legacy in Senate history.

This feat could hardly have been predicted when Senate Republicans elected McConnell their leader in 2006. For most of the 40-plus years I have watched McConnell, first as a reporter covering Kentucky politics and now as a journalism professor focused on rural issues, he seemed to have no great ambition or goals, other than gaining power and keeping it. Continue reading.

Survey shows 60% of US families struggling to get by as McConnell dismisses new COVID-19 relief bill

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On the Senate floor Wednesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated once again that he has no intention of providing badly-needed aid to struggling families across the U.S. even as new research found that nearly two-thirds of households with children are having trouble making ends meet.

McConnell dismissed the Democratic Party’s latest version of the HEROES Act as a “political stunt,” making it clear that like the bill which passed in the House in May—which has now languished in the Senate for 138 days—the $2.2 trillion relief package which House Democrats unveiled on Monday is not likely to reach the millions of families who need it.

“As always, his priorities are appalling,” Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, tweeted, noting McConnell’s determination to push through the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett—who has frequently ruled in favor of powerful corporations—to the U.S. Supreme Court. Continue reading.

Without Explanation, McConnell And McCarthy Skip RBG Memorial Service

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell skipped a service on Capitol Hill honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg, NBC News’ Kasie Hunt reported.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was also not in attendance at the ceremony honoring Ginsburg, the pioneering Supreme Court justice who died one week ago after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

It’s unclear why neither man attended the service. Doug Andres, a communications staffer for McConnell, declined to comment on what was on McConnell’s schedule that precluded him from attending the event. “No guidance or announcements on his schedule,” Andres said in an email. McCarthy’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

It is usually the tradition for the top four congressional leaders — the Senate majority and minority leader, and the House speaker and minority leader — to attend major events together, such as the ceremony honoring Ginsburg. Continue reading.

Barrett’s Record: A Conservative Who Would Push the Supreme Court to the Right

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As an appeals court judge, Judge Barrett has issued opinions that have reflected those of her mentor, Justice Antonin Scalia, but with few of his occasional liberal rulings.

WASHINGTON — Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, has compiled an almost uniformly conservative voting record in cases touching on abortion, gun rights, discrimination and immigration. If she is confirmed, she would move the court slightly but firmly to the right, making compromise less likely and putting at risk the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade.

Judge Barrett’s judicial opinions, based on a substantial sample of the hundreds of cases that she has considered in her three years on the federal appeals court in Chicago, are marked by care, clarity and a commitment to the interpretive methods used by Justice Antonin Scalia, the giant of conservative jurisprudence for whom she worked as a law clerk from 1998 to 1999.

But while Justice Scalia’s methods occasionally drove him to liberal results, notably in cases on flag burning and the role of juries in criminal cases, Judge Barrett could be a different sort of justice. Continue reading.