Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell

He’s With Stupid

Running for Senate in his new home state of New Hampshire, where Obamacare has achieved more than 200% of its goal for signups, Scott “Empty Barn Jacket” Brown says he will repeal Obamacare, but the people who have signed up can keep it.  Obviously, it is stupid to promise people they will have Obamacare when Obamacare no longer exists.

But now Mitch McConnell is promising the same thing in Kentucky, where almost half a million people have signed up.  McConnell says the state’s exchange has nothing to do with Obamacare.  But of course if Obamacare goes, so goes the federal exchange and all the state exchanges.

Immigration Reform? Ain’t Gonna Happen.

Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) says immigration reform won’t happen this year.

He says the GOP wants piecemeal reform, while the Dems want comprehensive reform, and there’s no way to resolve that.

Also, the Dems insist on a path to citizenship, while Republicans want legalization without that path.  The GOP doesn’t want to create a whole lot of new Dem voters.  And comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of the Senate-passed bill would infuriate their base, causing many of them to stay home in 2014.

As usual, the GOP is on  the wrong side of history with no good options.  Quel dommage.

The Emerging Deal

So it looks as if the latest  in the Reid-McConnell negotiations is to re-open the government until January 15 and raise the debt ceiling until February 7.  The deal would require income verification for those getting Obamacare subsidies, which was already in the law (as it should be!), until Obama waived it.  All this is taking place in the Senate (with Boehner being kept in the loop), so it’s not sure what would happen in the House.

McConnell Joins “No” Column

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), terrified of his junior senator Rand Paul and the Tea Party challenge to his re-election in 2014, just came out against Obama’s Syria resolution.  He’s making Speaker of the House John Boehner look even more like a Maytag repairman — very lonely.

And Ed “Profile in Courage” Markey (D-Massachusetts) has switched his vote from Present to No.

Don’t Tell Us How You Really Feel

Jesse Benton, Mitch McConnell’s 2014 campaign manager who said in a private phone call that he was “holding his nose” to work for the Senate minority leader, is trying to polish the giant turd he deposited on McConnell’s doorstep.

He now tells a Louisville TV station, “It was just so dumb, I don’t feel that way at all.”

The first half of his statement is true.

Bad as Benton looks, McConnell looks worse for not having the balls to fire him.

Quote of the Day — And Maybe the Month

“Between you and me, I’m sort of holding my nose for two years cause what we’re doing here is gonna be a big benefit to Rand in ’16.”

Jesse Benton, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager (probably not for long) for his 2014 re-election, in a recorded telephone conversation with Republican activist Dennis Fusaro.

Fusaro leaked the conversation to the Economic Policy Journal as part of the scandal about Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign paying Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson to jump ship from Michele Bachmann to Paul.  Under Iowa law, Sorenson couldn’t be paid by a presidential campaign, but he was. We’re talking a couple of hundred thousand dollars here.

Jesse Benton, who married into the Paul family, was Ron Paul’s national campaign chairman in 2012 and Rand Paul’s campaign manager in 2010.

McConnell needs Rand Paul’s support in his fight against Tea Party primary challengers, and then of course McConnell would be heavily in Rand Paul’s debt come 2016.

This is getting nasty, and it isn’t just about Kentucky, it has national implications for the next presidential election.

Is Mitch McConnell Anti-Catholic?

Lots of attention this morning on Mother Jones‘ release of a taped confidential Mitch McConnell strategy session where they discuss oppo research on Ashley Judd, who has since decided not to run against McConnell in Kentucky next year.

McConnell’s camp is comparing the tape’s release to Watergate and has gotten the FBI involved.  Mother Jones has explained they didn’t get the tape through a Watergate-type bugging, which leads one to believe there was someone in that room who isn’t exactly loyal to McConnell.

Anyway, during the meeting a McConnell aide played a tape of Judd on religion saying, “I’d like to think I’m like St. Francis in that way.  Brother Donkey, Sister Bird.”

This reference resulted in uproarious laughter, with the aide saying, “That’s my favorite line so far.  Absolute favorite one so far.”

The group seems ignorant that St. Francis, in dealing with his many infirmities, referred to his own body as “Brother Donkey” and that he was known for preaching sermons to flocks of birds.  His famous poem,”Canticle of the Sun” refers to various manifestations of nature as “Brother” and “Sister.”  Since God created everything, we are all brothers and sisters.

Now imagine that an Obama campaign group had been caught on tape laughing about Brother Donkey and Sister Bird.  Wouldn’t they have been chastised for their ignorance about St. Francis and Catholicism and for laughing at the Church’s most beloved saint?  Wouldn’t Sean Hannity have hit the roof about this lack of respect for Catholics, about this war on Catholics?

Mitch McConnell is a Southern Baptist.  Recently Southern Baptists and Catholics have made common cause over issues like abortion and marriage, but the history between the two groups is a pretty nasty and contentious one, with a long-standing hatred for “Papists” among the Baptists.

Our new Pope took the name Francis for a reason.  Mitch McConnell has some ‘splaining to do.