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Mitch McConnell on Foxnews Greta says that health care is in doubt in the Senate and that the Dem Leadership will have to convince a number of Democrats to "take a bullet for the team" for passage...(Video)

Here is video of GOP Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on This Week with George Stephanopoulos today, where he said Democrats are getting nervous "over this increasing view that Congress is acting like a teenager with their parents' credit card, not worried about who's going to have to pay the bill." What a great way to say it! . . . (VIDEO)

It’s not popular with his party, but Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is saying that the Wall Street bailout was a success – one year after the historic $700 billion vote. The Troubled Asset Relief Program has “succeeded in stabilizing the banking system,” McConnell told reporters Friday. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27851.html##ixzz0T9l2BtYV

How's that Hope and Change working out? Mitch calls it a failure on CNN's State of the Union, + the numbers for Obama's first 6 months...

Mitch McConnell appears to be taking Jennifer Rubin's adage to heart as his office announced that the Republican leader will oppose the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court: McConnell gives his reasons in a press release outlining remarks he will make Monday on the senate floor: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "From the beginning of this confirmation process, I've said that Americans expect one thing when they walk into a court room, whether it's a traffic court or the Supreme Court - and that's equal treatment under the law. Over the years, Americans have accepted significant ideological differences in the kinds of...

Friday, July 17, 2009 - Senate Republican Leader will deliver remarks on the Senate floor Monday outlining his opposition to Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court - ‘If, however, Judge Sotomayor were to become a Supreme Court Justice, there would be no backstop. Her rulings would be final. She’d be unencumbered by the obligation of lower court judges to follow precedent. She could act more freely on the kinds of views that animated her troubling and legally incorrect ruling in the Ricci case. That’s not a chance I’m willing to take.’ WASHINGTON, D.C.- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will formally...

Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) discussed Obama's health care plan and what the GOP can do to stop it. On Judge Sotomayor, McConnell said the Senate needs time to work through new documents obtained about her. On Gov. Sanford, McConnell refused to comment on the situation. McConnell was adamant about saying he has the business of the Senate to worry about.

Senate Republicans, from the rank and file to the leadership, are supporting the inevitable move to the center that comes with backing Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for the state’s open Senate seat. GOP senators accept that Tuesday's endorsements of Crist by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) is more about pragmatism than principle. The popular centrist governor faces a GOP primary from former state House Speaker Marco Rubio of West Miami, a protégé of former Gov. Jeb Bush and a more conservative candidate.

President Barack Obama's 3.55-trillion-dollar budget plan will leave the United States with a worse budget deficit than Cuba, a leading Republican critic warned Tuesday. "This creates for us a higher deficit than Cuba's. This is not the kind of position we want to put the United States in," Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. Other Republican critics of Obama's spending policies, including his nearly 800-billion-dollar economic stimulus package, have variously warned that he risks turning the country into Argentina, France, Germany, or Zimbabwe. Asked for the figures underpinning the charge, a McConnell aide pointed to a report from the...

If you follow new GOP chief Michael Steele around these days, you can bet you’ll hear him bring up New Jersey’s gubernatorial race this year. He wants that blue state red again. From top to bottom, the GOP is talking about New Jersey. Here at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reminded the crowds that the last time New Jersey had a conservative candidate for governor, he won with 70% of the vote (Tom Kean, 1984). That’s 70% — in New Jersey. After that victory it is inexplicable that New Jersey’s Republican intelligentsia determined...

(CBS) The Senate's leading Republican said he is taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the revelation that former Senator Tom Daschle - named to a cabinet post by President Obama - recently filed an amended tax return and paid $140,000 in back taxes and interest. Appearing on CBS' Face The Nation, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to say whether he thinks Daschle's nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services is in trouble, but admitted news of Daschle tax troubles was "a surprise." “The Senate Finance Committee is meeting tomorrow to go over this and to come up with recommendations for...

The top Republican in the Senate is warning that the GOP risks remaining in the minority unless it does a better job of explaining its core principles to woo one-time faithful and new loyalists. "Every so often, there comes a time when a political party has to re-examine itself. For Republicans, now is such a time," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says in remarks prepared for delivery later Thursday. "For some, the work might seem daunting. It shouldn't - because there are signs that a revival is already taking place." In excerpts obtained by the Associated Press, McConnell doesn't elaborate on...

Allow me to be blunt: There are some of you who have fallen under McConnell’s spell in the same way the lefties have fallen under Obama’s spell. McConnell can do no wrong. You all wet your pants when McConnell publicly rebukes Reid and engage in private actions that might cause you to go blind behind closed doors in the bathroom to his floor statements against defunding the war. The idea that Mitch McConnell is protecting us from the Democrats is bullcrap. We should collectively rip off his jaw and shovel the crap back down his throat that he’s been serving...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will be on different networks Sunday, but both will offer the same basic message — they need to work together for the good of the country and the success of President-elect Barack Obama.

In the Senate's Thursday night automobile showdown, the United Auto Workers said "No thanks" to a bailout with strings attached. Most Senate Republicans took them at their word and voted to block the bill. But within hours, President Bush blinked and Treasury is now scrambling to use money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Who'd have thought Mr. Bush would want to join the long line of Detroit executives in caving to the UAW? Senate Republicans had more gumption. Led by Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, they asked the auto workers to show they were serious about making Detroit...

Dear Supporter,I've just learned of a new challenge to my re-election campaign.And I need your help to meet that challenge - and overcome it.  Let me explain.Last year, the left-wing group MoveOn.org bought a full-page New York Times ad (pictured above) calling General David Petraeus a "traitor."  Conservatives, moderates, and even a few liberals roundly called them out for this despicable and uncalled for attack on the character of a real American hero.Now they're trying to influence the outcome of this year's election.  And according to a report published in today's Roll Call, they are coming to Kentucky: "the...

On Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez discussed the congressional races with the editor of the liberal New Republic magazine, Michael Crowley, and asked: "Now, if the Democrats get to 60 seats, as they hope to, what would be significant about that?" Crowley replied: "...in the Senate the other -- the opposition can filibuster. And if you have 60 votes you can basically tell them to 'shut up and we're going to pass our bill, sit down.' So 60 votes is the magic number because the opposition, if they have 41, can draw things out and prevent you from...

Dear Supporter, Well, I told you it was coming and now my prediction is a reality.New York liberal Chuck Schumer is dumping tons of special interest dollars into Kentucky to try to save his hand-picked candidate Bruce Lunsford.  We knew they were coming, but you may ask, why now?Perhaps this will give you a clue. This note was sent to tens of thousands of Democrat activists by Schumer's committee: "We're on the verge of breaking things open.  Our chances have never looked better to elect that filibuster-proof Senate majority to help Barack Obama put this country back on the right course."So there you...

Most Americans live within their means and pay their mortgages on time, but some people took risky mortgages, betting that the price of homes would continue to rise. That bet isn’t paying off for some, and now Congress wants to give out $300 billion in new taxpayer loans to some of the riskiest borrowers with the worst credit. The median home price in Kentucky is just $111,000, yet the bailout promises taxpayer loan sizes of over $500,000. The bailout bill will serve as a transfer of money and risk from Kentucky taxpayers to housing speculators in San Francisco, Las Vegas,...

As Kentucky voters prepare to go to the polls next week, they appear ready to elect a new Governor. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows former Lt. Governor Steven Beshear (D) leading incumbent Governor Ernie Fletcher (R) 54% to 39% in the 2007 Kentucky Governor’s race . Fletcher, elected in 2003 on a promise to "clean up the mess in Frankfort", was indicted a year ago in an alleged scheme to reward political supporters with protected state jobs. Fletcher called the indictment a political witch hunt and the indictment was dismissed in a negotiated settlement with prosecutors. Beshear, a...

Some Democrats have decided to try to transform the military draft into what the Social Security issue was 25 years ago. Time and time again since the late 1970s, Democratic candidates and campaign committees sought to win the votes of seniors by raising questions about whether Republicans would dismantle Social Security if they ever won control of Congress. The Democrats’ scare tactics on Social Security were not without basis. Republicans opposed the creation of Social Security, and for more than a decade, many conservative GOP candidates and high-profile officeholders, including former Rep. Newt Gingrich (Ga.), bashed the system and berated...

Much has been said in the mainstream media about how the Bush presidency is essentially over, a lame duck mired in controversy. Thursday, however, George W. Bush demonstrated that when he does wish to use the bully pulpit, especially with powerful allies like Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate, he very much can move legislation through in a very timely fashion. Throughout this week in both houses of Congress, there has been consideration and negotiation on a piece of legislation submitted by Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, the National Director of Intelligence, who very clearly spelled out in Congressional testimony...

A remarkable thing happened in the United States Senate earlier this evening, and it occurred over a rather unremarkable piece of legislation that was being debated. Conservatives, frustrated at the lack of a genuine leader of their party, may have finally found one in Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. After Democratic leader Harry Reid’s MoveOn.org all-night session Tuesday night, a move that resulted only in helping unify the weak-kneed Republicans who were peeling away from continued support of the Petraeus surge in Iraq, McConnell, the Republican leader, served notice to anyone watching C-SPAN that he now runs the Senate. The Senate...

Every high school student in America knows the book "1984," George Orwell's classic novel about a totalitarian state that controls its people by pounding them with slogans that contradict reality: peace is war, ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery. The phrases have changed, but the effort to control people through manipulative speech hasn't. Recent talk by liberals in Congress about reviving the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" is solid proof of that. First established by the Federal Communications Commission in 1949, the "Fairness Doctrine" required broadcasters to provide audiences with competing views on controversial issues of public importance. The rule was meant...

I asked one of the few conservative Republican senators who stuck with President Bush on immigration to assess how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell handled the issue. Asking not to be quoted by name, he replied: "If this were a war, Sen. McConnell should be relieved of command for dereliction of duty." Not only did the minority leader end up voting against an immigration bill that he said was better than the 2006 version he supported, he abandoned his post, staying off the floor during final stages of the debate. Although I had never before seen a Senate party leader...

With his caucus bitterly divided and the Senate descending into procedural warfare, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) stayed away from the Senate floor as the most sweeping overhaul of immigration laws in 21 years hung in the balance. Facing the biggest challenge of his leadership tenure, McConnell has largely chosen to work behind the scenes and instead allow a bloc of conservatives to spar with Republican supporters of the bill. Conservatives also railed all day on the process used by Senate leaders to bring the bill to the floor. But Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and other Democrats wasted no...

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is drawing criticism back in a television ad being run by a national group. McConnell helped revive an immigration bill this week. NumbersUSA favors restricting immigration. The group accuses McConnell of joining liberal icon Ted Kennedy in strong-arming senators to support amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The group's ad says illegal immigrants have taken jobs from American workers, and says the legislation won't stop future illegal immigration. The ad started airing Tuesday in Kentucky. The commercial asks people to contact McConnell to urge him to oppose the measure

A Republican senator from Kentucky says the so-called "comprehensive immigration reform" bill is completely unnecessary because there are already laws on the books the government has yet to enforce that will stop illegal aliens at the border. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is reportedly unsure whether he will support the immigration bill that would grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. McConnell tells Associated Press, "the bill on the merits is a mixed bag," and he won't decide how to vote on the measure until a series of amendments have been considered. But fellow Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is...

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Sunday he believes a second try at immigration reform will pass and will garner "good support" among Republicans. The reason it will pass with GOP support is the bill is "tough, fair and practical, Kennedy said on ABC's" This Week with George Stephanopoulous." Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said earlier, however, he didn't think the measure would pass. The legislation contains $4.4 billion for beefing up border security and is tough on worksite enforcement, Kennedy said. "And finally, we will have a tamper-proof card to make sure that we can really have an effective...

Sen. Edward Kennedy needs Marna Vasquez, and vice versa. Vasquez is a packinghouse worker from Porterville. Kennedy is a rich and famous Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Nonetheless, the 37-year-old former illegal immigrant and the 75-year-old lawmaker briefly shared a Capitol Hill stage this week to push for sweeping immigration revisions. Vasquez needs Kennedy's bill to help her friends and neighbors. He needs her voice to persuade congressional fence-sitters. "I have a lot of faith that we're going to win," Vasquez said. "That's how we feel." But there are strong feelings on all sides of the immigration debate, which resumes Tuesday...

Procedural snares and ``killer'' amendments threaten to disrupt the fragile coalition in the Senate that's holding together the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration policy since 1986. Supporters are scrambling to address the legislative obstacles before debate resumes next week. Opponents plan to try to derail the legislation by using procedural delays and offering poison-pill amendments that may split the coalition that sustains the measure. Passage of the legislation would give 12 million undocumented immigrants a chance at legal status while handing President George W. Bush a victory on his top domestic priority. ``This is a delicate balance. The wheels...

Right after opening the new Congress in January, the Senate's Democratic Leadership introduced a bill that neatly outlined the thrust of U.S. Democracy-building efforts abroad: "It should be the policy of the United States," the bill said, " ...to use instruments of United States influence to support, promote, and strengthen democratic principles, practices, and values, including the right to free, fair, and open elections, secret balloting, and universal suffrage." Now that Democrats are poised to eliminate secret ballots from the workplace, Americans are right to ask a simple question: "Huh?"

The Senate's Republican leader says he is unsure whether he will vote for the immigration bill President Bush strongly supports, underscoring the measure's precarious status. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long called for an immigration overhaul, saying the current situation is deeply flawed. And as the Senate minority leader, McConnell is central to shepherding legislation the president wants. But in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, McConnell said he would not decide how to vote on the measure until a long series of amendments are disposed of next week. "The bill on the merits is a mixed bag,"...

WASHINGTON — The Senate's Republican leader says he is unsure whether he will vote for the immigration bill President Bush strongly supports, underscoring the measure's precarious status. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long called for an immigration overhaul, saying the current situation is deeply flawed. And as the Senate minority leader, McConnell is central to shepherding legislation the president wants. But in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, McConnell said he would not decide how to vote on the measure until a long series of amendments are disposed of next week. "The bill on the merits is a...

Today, it looks like the immigration issue is ripping apart the Republican Party. But tomorrow - 2008 - could be a different story. Specifically, it's George W. Bush who is ripping up Republican unity. Reflecting his own rich kid Texas roots - doesn't everyone own a ranch, requiring lots of nonwhite people to do the work? - Bush is determined to bring the benefits of the Tara Plantation lifestyle to more of his fellow millionaires. But what about the middle class, which finds its wages depressed, its culture besieged and its sovereignty challenged? Well, frankly, Bush doesn't give a damn....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced an updated immigration bill Monday, launching one more attempt to conclude debate on the contentious issue and approve the measure in the Senate before Congress breaks for the 4th of July holiday. The next two weeks are likely the last chance for passage of an immigration bill in the Senate this year, and this seems to be a critical make-or-break moment for advocates of comprehensive reform. The bill was pronounced all but dead two weeks ago, when Reid, a Nevada Democrat, pulled it from consideration after several motions to limit debate failed. At the...

This is a links and activism-central thread to collect the information on the status and effort to defeat the Senate Immigration bill, especially the egregious Z visa amnesty program, in its second attempt at passage. The Vampire Strikes Back The nefarious back-room dealers in the US Senate announced on Thursday night that they were bringing the Senate Immigration bill, killed on a previous cloture vote, back from the dead. Senators are trolling for votes. The future of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA hangs in the balance as they try to drum up support for the sellout of the century. WILL...

The Senate's top Republican yesterday said the fate of the immigration bill is still in doubt as he and the Senate's top Democrat revive it and force it back on the schedule this week. "It's hard to know if the votes will be there to pass it or not," said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Last week, Mr. McConnell agreed to buck many of his party's conservatives and force a limit to the number of amendments they want to offer to the immigration bill. In exchange, Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, agreed to put the bill back on...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is one of the smartest conservatives in the Senate. But on the dangerous immigration bill, he has been silent as the grave. His website is conspicuously silent on immigration. 

‘We need to have maximum opportunity for the largest number of amendments before shutting down debate on this important measure’ Washington, D.C. – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following statement on the Senate floor Monday on the comprehensive immigration bill: “As the Majority Leader indicated, we are in the middle of a big, challenging contentious issue. “There are many amendments pending. In fact, over 80 filed at the desk. A lot of work has been done over the recess in terms of some of those amendments. It is my hope that some of them can be disposed of...

Senator Mitch McConnell (R KY) has offered an amendment to the immigration bill pending in the Senate that would require every voter in the 2008 election to provide government-issued, current and valid photo identification before being allowed to vote at a polling place. This amendment would disenfranchise large numbers of legal voters and create administrative problems at the polls in the next federal election. Please contact your Senators immediately and urge them to oppose the McConnell Amendment to require photo ID for the 2008 election. Congress must not manipulate the voting process by blocking voters from participating in elections. This...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Last fall, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., came to Connecticut to help Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont in his bid to unseat veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lamont is now returning the favor. He and the Massachusetts Democrat are teaming up to target Republican senators they say are blocking efforts to end the Iraq war. Lamont, a political novice whose anti-war views fueled his summer primary win over Lieberman, sent out a fundraising pitch on Friday to about 3 million people on Kerry’s national e-mail list. "Last year, Connecticut Democrats heard my call for an end to the war...

Democratic leaders are turning to Republicans to help them pass a new Iraq war spending bill that President Bush won't veto - unlike the one Congress will send him next week with a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops. Bush repeated his promise Friday to veto the war spending bill and any such measure with a pullout date, even as Democrats renewed their calls for the president to sign the $124.2 billion bill. "If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether or not I'll accept the timetable for withdrawal, I won't accept one," Bush declared. At the same...

Washington, D.C. – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Thursday regarding the Majority Leader’s claim that the war in Iraq ‘is lost’: “I can’t begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat Leader of the United States Senate has declared the war is lost. I can’t begin to imagine what their families will think. Surely this isn’t the consensus position of Senate Democrats. “If the war is already lost, if it is already time...

Mitch McConnell's will to win, developed at an early age, fell short when as president of the Student Bar Association at the University of Kentucky law school he failed in his effort to institute a student honor code. It was a major defeat in his early political life. "I laid my prestige on the line and lost," says McConnell, sitting cross-legged under a chandelier in the Republican leadership office, shortly after debating a spending bill on the Senate floor. "It's an example of a leader getting out in front of his constituents too far and not bringing them along." The...

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has a theory about divided government. It's this: When one party holds the White House, and the other holds one or both houses of Congress, the chances of passing landmark legislation improve dramatically. McConnell cites two examples. The first is the passage in 1983 of a Social Security reform (and bailout) bill that brought President Reagan and Democratic House speaker Tip O'Neill together. The other came in 1996 when President Clinton signed a sweeping welfare reform bill drafted by a Republican Congress.A theory held by the leader of the minority party in Congress normally wouldn't...

Senator McConnell: The NRSC Will Support Senators Who Vote for Levin-Warner Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 6:41 PM Which means that 32,000 pledge takers won't be supporting the NRSC (or those senators who vote for Levin-Warner.) There is still some hope, however, that a unified GOP caucus will kill Warner-Levin quietly by refusing to allow a vote on it at all. Transcript of my conversation with Senator McConnell. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell updates on the Iraq resolutions to come next week. HH: Joined now by the leader of the Republicans in the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell. Senator McConnell,...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's decision to send 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq drew heavy fire from both Democrats and some Republicans on Thursday despite a plea by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a "national imperative not to fail." A day after Bush's prime time speech from the White House, the Senate's top Republican threatened a filibuster to block any legislation expressing disapproval of the plan. "Obviously, it will ... require 60 votes," said Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., as senior administration officials made the case for Bush's new policy in Congress, at news briefings and...

The Senate's next Republican leader issued a veiled threat to block action on legislation if Democrats refuse to allow confirmation votes on President Bush's troubled judicial nominations. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will become minority leader Jan. 4, told the conservative Federalist Society Friday not to feel bad about the Senate election results because Republicans will hold 49 seats in a body that requires 60 votes to end a filibuster and bring legislation or presidential nominees to a final vote. If the "Democrats want our cooperation, they'll give the president's judicial nominees an up-or-down vote," McConnell said. Vice President...

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has been a disaster and the rest of the House and Senate leadership has not been any better. The lean, ascetic, ideological purity of the Gingrich Republicans of 1994 had yielded to the corrupt, feather-your-own-nest psychology of the current Republican congressional leadership. They assumed that the partisan gerrymandering of 2000 left them invulnerable and they dipped into the till to get earmarks for their favorite lobbyists in return for contributions and free vacations. It's time to get rid of this kind of leadership and to bring in people with a fine, tough partisan and ideological...