Tag: Senate GOP

Republican-Led Review Backs Intelligence Findings on Russian Interference

New York Times logoA new Senate report undercuts claims by President Trump and his allies that Obama-era officials sought to undermine him while investigating Russia’s 2016 election meddling.

WASHINGTON — For years, President Trump has derided the assessment by American intelligence officials that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to assist his candidacy, dismissing it without evidence as the work of a “deep state” out to undermine his victory.

But on Tuesday, a long-awaited Senate review led by members of Mr. Trump’s own party effectively undercut those allegations. A three-year review by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously found that the intelligence community assessment, pinning blame on Russia and outlining its goals to undercut American democracy, was fundamentally sound and untainted by politics.

“The I.C.A. reflects strong tradecraft, sound analytical reasoning and proper justification of disagreement in the one analytical line where it occurred,” said Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the panel’s chairman. “The committee found no reason to dispute the intelligence community’s conclusions.” Continue reading.

Judge Justin Walker is a window into McConnell’s sway on federal courts

Judge Justin Walker is a window into McConnell’s sway on federal courts

The way Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tells the story, the start of Justin Walker’s rapid rise to a federal judgeship started two decades ago with his particularly insightful high school research paper about partisan politics.

Walker interviewed McConnell about the 1994 midterm election, when Republicans swept both chambers of Congress for the first time in 40 years. In the process, he told the Kentucky Republican that particular election was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in his young life.

“Clearly, he had excellent political tastes from quite a young age,” McConnell told the crowd last month at Walker’s formal investiture as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. Continue reading.

Senate adjourns with no deal on small-business loan program

The Hill logoA fight over hundreds of billions in small-business funding will carry into next week after the Senate adjourned for the week on Thursday without an agreement.

The Senate held a brief pro forma session on Thursday — which are constitutionally mandated absent a larger adjournment agreement.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not try for a second time to pass a new $250 billion for the small-business program — a request that would have been blocked by Democrats absent a deal on the funding package, which has not yet been reached. Continue reading.

Democrats try to force McConnell’s hand on coronavirus aid

The Hill logoCongressional Democratic leaders are trying to box out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) by negotiating a deal with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and President Trump to provide $251 billion in new funding for small businesses.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.) calculate that Trump will be eager for a deal when funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a popular small-business lending program, is projected to expire Thursday, when another wave of unemployment claims become public.

They have largely worked with Mnuchin instead of McConnell, betting that if Trump signs on to a $500 billion deal to extend small-business lending, send funds to hospitals and rescue cash-strapped states, McConnell and other GOP lawmakers will fall in line. Continue reading.

Tax change in coronavirus package overwhelmingly benefits millionaires, congressional body finds

Washington Post logoThe provision, included by Senate Republicans, would cost taxpayers approximately $90 billion in 2020

More than 80 percent of the benefits of a tax change tucked into the coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month will go to those who earn more than $1 million annually, according to a report by a nonpartisan congressional body expected to be released Tuesday.

The provision, inserted into the legislation by Senate Republicans, temporarily suspends a limitation on how much owners of businesses formed as “pass-through” entities can deduct against their nonbusiness income, such as capital gains, to reduce their tax liability. The limitation was created as part of the 2017 Republican tax law to offset other tax cuts to firms in that legislation.

Suspending the limitation will cost taxpayers about $90 billion in 2020 alone, part of a set of tax changes that will add close to $170 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the nonpartisan congressional body. Continue reading.

How Mitch McConnell Became Trump’s Enabler-in-Chief

The Senate Majority Leader’s refusal to rein in the President is looking riskier than ever.

On Thursday, March 12th, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, could have insisted that he and his colleagues work through the weekend to hammer out an emergency aid package addressing the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, he recessed the Senate for a long weekend, and returned home to Louisville, Kentucky. McConnell, a seventy-eight-year-old Republican who is about to complete his sixth term as a senator, planned to attend a celebration for a protégé, Justin Walker, a federal judge who was once his Senate intern. McConnell has helped install nearly two hundred conservatives as judges; stocking the judiciary has been his legacy project.

Soon after he left the Capitol, Democrats in the House of Representatives settled on a preliminary rescue package, working out the details with the Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin. The Senate was urgently needed for the next steps in the process. McConnell, though, was onstage in a Louisville auditorium, joking that his opponents “occasionally compare me to Darth Vader.”

The gathering had the feel of a reunion. Don McGahn, Donald Trump’s former White House counsel, whom McConnell has referred to as his “buddy and co-collaborator” in confirming conservative judges, flew down for the occasion. So did Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose Senate confirmation McConnell had fought fiercely to secure. Walker, the event’s honoree, had clerked for Kavanaugh, and became one of his lead defenders after Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault. McConnell is now championing Walker for an opening on the powerful D.C. Court of Appeals, even though Walker has received a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association, in part because, at the age of thirty-eight, he has never tried a case. Continue reading.

GOP senators urge Trump to protect insurers from state legislation

The Hill logoSeven GOP senators sent a letter to President Trump on Friday asking that he commit to protecting the insurance industry from proposals in state legislatures that would require insurance companies to retroactively cover small-business losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Many small-business insurance policies do not cover pandemics when it comes to losses from business interruptions.

State lawmakers in New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Massachusetts have introduced bills that would retroactively require small-business insurance policies to cover losses due to closures from the coronavirus. Continue reading.

New round of stimulus talks face GOP roadblock

The Hill logoSenate Republicans on Thursday signaled they won’t be ready to launch into another round of economic stimulus talks until next month.

The GOP resistance puts a damper on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer’s (N.Y.) efforts to seize the political momentum on a phase-four coronavirus relief package.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday said he’s not opposed to more money for hospitals and health care providers “down the line” but said Democrats are already asking for money for programs that have yet to receive funding allocated for them in the CARES Act, which became law March 27. Continue reading.

No deal on fresh coronavirus aid package

Rift over size, shape of relief package threatens small-business fund

A partisan stalemate deepened Thursday over the next steps needed in providing coronavirus financial relief.

The impasse derailed an attempt by Senate Republicans to add $251 billion to a dwindling fund for small-business loans, as Democrats pushed for a broader relief effort.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sought unanimous consent for legislation to replenish the loan fund, but Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., objected. Continue reading.

‘This is despicable’: Not even COVID-19 pandemic can halt Trump’s right-wing takeover of federal courts

AlterNet logoCritics warn the president’s latest nominees for lifetime appellate court positions are both committed to the “deadly agenda” of overturning the entire Affordable Care Act.

As the coronavirus pandemic continued to ravage the United States this week, killing and infecting thousands while shuttering schools and businesses, President Donald Trump proceeded with his ongoing effort to shift the federal judiciary to the far-right by announcing a fresh pair of lifetime nominees to appellate courts.

“Who is Justin Walker, Trump’s new D.C. Circuit nominee? He’s a Mitch McConnell and Brett Kavanaugh crony who is staunchly anti-healthcare.”
—Demand Justice

Continue reading.