McConnell: Not a 'snowball's chance in hell' I'll relent on SCOTUS

(Hat tip: KimR) - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a group of staunch House conservatives there isn't "a snowball's chance in hell" that he will back down from his opposition to confirming a Supreme Court justice before a new president is elected. Read more at Politico Read More......

McConnell’s “Leadership” May Cost Republicans the Senate

A far cry from the popular establishment meme that principled conservatives are damaging the GOP’s credibility, recent evidence suggests if there is a cancer within the ranks it is spreading from the party’s epicenter. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has become an albatross around the necks of his Republican colleagues, safeguarding his own career at the expense of those around him and the electoral viability of the party at large.

Read more at Conservative Review
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McConnell to GOP Populist Base: Let Business Groups Win in 2017

The GOP’s populist base can help win big battles for the party’s business donors in 2017, if it just shuts up for the next few months, GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)suggested in a low-drama interview with Politico. McConnell offered nothing to the party’s populist base, except finger-wagging. The pro-life push to transfer funding away from abortion-giant Planned Parenthood “is an exercise in futility… that’s not going to happen until you have a president who has a similar view,” he said. McConnell didn’t offer any opposition to President Barack Obama’s effort to amnesty millions of illegal immigrants, or his promise to bring in at least 10,000 Muslim refugees from Syria late this year.

Read more at Breitbart.com
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McConnell Rejects Iran Delay

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is dismissing a House Republican Hail-Mary attempt to kill the Iran nuclear deal by postponing a vote on a disapproval resolution. --House conservatives want to delay the vote and argue that the 60-day congressional review period has not yet elapsed because the administration has yet to submit paperwork detailing “side deals” between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Read more at The Hill
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Ted Cruz to Mitch McConnell: Don’t schedule legislation to fund Planned Parenthood

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who is taking a lead role in a campaign to end taxpayer support for Planned Parenthood, will send Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a letter next week urging him not to schedule a vote on or help push legislation that gives federal money to the organization.The letter, which is in draft form and circulating around the Senate for signatures, is Cruz's first official action against the organization in the new Senate session, which starts Tuesday. It comes as McConnell said this week that Congress won't be able to stop government money from going to Planned Parenthood.

Read more at the Washington Post
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McConnell concedes that Obama has 'a great likelihood of success' on Iran deal

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that he hoped Congress could override a veto of a resolution that disapproves of President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with the Iranians, but he acknowledged the president still had "a great likelihood of success." --In remarks to the Scott County Chamber of Commerce, McConnell said he hoped "to have a respectful, uplifting debate" when the Senate returns to vote on the resolution.

Read more at the Lexington Herald-Leader
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Senate Votes to Revive Export-Import Bank, Keep Obamacare

In a pair of losses for conservatives, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Sunday to revive the Export-Import Bank while failing to overcome a filibuster of an attempt to repeal Obamacare — with more fireworks to come. --The rare Sunday votes set the stage for the Senate to send a long-term highway bill tied to the Ex-Im Bank to the House later this week, but not before facing other gambits by conservatives, including a procedural vote forced by Sen. Ted Cruz regarding the Iran deal and an effort to deploy a maneuver akin to the “nuclear option.”

Read more at Roll Call
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Mitch McConnell Outsourcing Everything, Including His Job

No, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) didn’t officially resign from the Senate. He will still engage in all legislative activities that advance Obama’s agenda, such as Obamatrade, the highway trust fund bailout, Export-Import Bank, and reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. But he did publicly outsource the last vestige of constitutional checks on the two unelected branches of government. So what is the purpose of serving in the legislative branch of government other than to enrich your friends with pay-for-play favors?

Read more at Conservative Review
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Senate rejects NSA amendments

The Senate has rejected all three controversial amendments from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to legislation reforming the National Security Agency (NSA), edging closer to sending the bill to President Obama's desk. The first amendment from McConnell, rejected in a 42-56 vote, would have changed the structure of a new expert panel created by the USA Freedom Act to weigh in one some matters before the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees spying matters.

Read more at The Hill
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McConnell Gives Poster Child of Corporate Welfare a Pass

There is nothing more rare in Washington than the opportunity to shutter the doors of a profligate federal agency. Thus the prospect of ending the wasteful and corrupt Export-Import Bank is even more enticing. Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has just handed the Democrats another gift that could possibly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for Republicans and reauthorize the poster child of corporate welfare.

Read more at Conservative Review
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Charen: What the Budget Impasse is Really About

Mona Charen - We are headed for something much worse than the fiscal cliff. ✧ When governments cannot pay their current employees because they’ve gone broke paying pensions to previous employees (among other obligations), you don’t get a “fiscal cliff” or even a bad recession, you get the unraveling of civilization. ✧ That is how Republicans should present the stakes in the budget impasse when speaking to the press. So far, John Boehner has described the president’s proposals as “unserious” and Mitch McConnell has let it be known that he laughed in Tim Geithner’s face. Do either of those responses convince the average voter that something is at stake here beyond Republicans protecting their wealthy friends? Read more at NRO... Read More......

Republicans Dig In Against Obama's War on Wall Street

NEWSMAX, 4/18/2010 - WASHINGTON – Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell vowed Sunday to oppose Barack Obama's finance industry reforms even if the president abandons plans to set up a $50 billion liquidation fund for failed banks. Read more at Newsmax... Read More......

Bunning Fight with GOP over Jobless Bill

FOXNews.com, 3/2/2010 - The gruff, irascible style of Sen. Jim Bunning may not have earned him any friends in the Senate but it could give the retiring lawmaker the last laugh as he victoriously spits in the eye of colleagues after creating a political firestorm over jobless benefits that has dismayed Republicans and delighted Democrats. Read more at Fox News...

The article is pretty negative focusing on a ongoing tiff between Sen. Bunning and the GOP leadership, however, Sen. Bunning insisted the senate stick to it's Pay-Go policy. On Hannity tonignt, Bunning got an applause for that. --bc

Ouch! - NRO, 3/4/2010 by Andrew C. McCarthy: [GOP] AWOL in the Bunning Battle Read More......

McConnell Statement on Finance Committee Proposal

10/13/2009 PRESS RELEASE from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell - ‘The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate’ ∴ WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Tuesday regarding the Finance Committee vote on partisan health care reform:

“Sen. Snowe called me this morning to let me know that while she continues to have serious, substantive policy reservations with this proposal, she wanted to keep the process moving. I share her concerns about the direction of this bill once it leaves the committee, and her call for transparency before we vote to proceed to any bill on the floor.

"The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate. But what we do know is that the bill written behind closed doors here in the Capitol will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar Washington takeover. We know it will slash a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, add new taxes and raise premiums. That’s not reform.” [Emphasis added]

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