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Coburn: Constituents link IRS audits to Mitt Romney donations By Daniel Strauss - 05/23/13 09:33 AM ET Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Thursday his constituents have suggested they were audited by the Internal Revenue Service because they donated to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign. Coburn made the charge during an interview on MSNBC. [Watch video] "What I would tell you, is our whistleblower side is lit up," Coburn said Thursday on the news channel. "And I got a phone call yesterday and one of the things I want to know is, everybody that contributed to Romney, I want to know...

The Talk Shows May 19th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Pfeiffer, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Rep. David Camp, R-Mich.; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Pfeiffer, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Sen. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah; Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt.THIS WEEK (ABC): Pfeiffer; Sen. Robert Menendez, D- N.J.; Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Pfeiffer, Sen. Rand...

In fairness to people weary of the current GOP leadership Mitch McConnell probably did NOT come up with this on his own.

One of the most politically intense fights over the Affordable Care Act was over the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, infamously dubbed a "death panel" by Republicans during the 2010 elections. On Thursday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled that they would keep working to keep opposition alive by doing everything they can to impede the board's implementation. The two leaders wrote a letter to President Barack Obama, notifying him that they would not be submitting any recommendations to the panel because of their opposition to it and to the law in...

Gun control advocates are in hysterics, using frenzied, emotional attacks against Senators who opposed gun control last month in hopes of changing the momentum. This explains why Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has been targeted in New Hampshire, and it's why Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly have been targeting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in Kentucky. Staunch gun control supporters saw Sandy Hook Elementary as their opportunity to secure more gun laws, but now they see that opportunity fading away....

Can you imagine the firestorm that would happen if a conservative talker called President Obama a “SOB?” On Wednesday’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that:I don’t know why it is, because I’m not always partisan. But I really do have a problem with Mitch McConnell. I would like to see him get stung hard on this one. So, why do I think like that? (laughter) Because he tends to be a SOB generally? Does anybody like that guy? …

Victoria McCullough, a staff assistant to White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, is listed as the official who signed Reilly in. Reilly also went to the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress during his visit to the capital, according to his Twitter feed.

Progress Kentucky is a super PAC that is acting more like a rogue operation in its efforts to unseat Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell -- sending out racially sensitive tweets and allegedly making a secret recording of the Senate minority leader’s re-election strategy talks. The group has been around only since December, raising about $1,000 and spending $18, compared to the McConnell campaign that has raised $10 million toward 2014 re-election efforts, according to recent Federal Election Commission filings. Kentucky Democrats have over the past week made numerous, overt efforts to separate their party from Kentucky Progress and its questionable...

AMERICA is rightly on edge. When a man with the power to make life-or-death decisions affecting thousands of U.S. citizens recklessly shows contempt for decency and international norms of behavior, it is no wonder the American people would be both angry and fearful. When his threats are so clearly contrary to the interests of those he represents and even those who might otherwise support him, it is natural to wonder whether he has somehow become unhinged. But we should react calmly. We should not let such disregard for the public good and such an imminent threat to the lives of...

Soviet Agent Award for Mother Jones Reporter Cliff Kincaid — April 12, 2013 David Corn, the liberal writer and MSNBC analyst who based a story about Republican Senator Mitch McConnell on a secret and possibly illegal tape recording, is scheduled to accept an award named for Soviet agent of influence I.F. Stone. The identification of Stone as a Soviet agent is not in serious dispute, except among his most loyal and sycophantic followers.Equally scandalous, Corn is being presented the award by Jeff Cohen, who has started a petition through his radical organization, RootsAction, to give accused traitor Bradley Manning the...

Pressure is growing Thursday afternoon on a liberal super PAC in Kentucky accused of surreptitiously recording a strategy session held by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Jacob Conway, the Jefferson County Democratic Party’s executive committee member who originally accused Progress Kentucky of making the recording, told NBC News he was on his way to talk to the FBI about the allegations. And the group’s treasurer confirmed he had quit his position after the audio was published. “At this time based on advice of both friends and counsel, I will be not be making a public statement available until everything has...

April 12, 2013 Secret McConnell campaign recording was allegedly made by co-founders of a liberal advocacy group, including a Democratic National Convention delegate * Potential suspect was longtime Democratic insider, despite party's claim it was blindsided by investigation* Liberal magazine that published recording may have received the product of a federal wiretapping felonyDavid Martosko The activists who allegedly recorded a private conversation among members of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election team are tied to a liberal political action committee whose co-founder was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. ... The Daily Caller reported that Reilly was a...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Get this. Let me find it. This is Foreign Policy magazine! Folks, this is highbrow. This Foreign Policy magazine is not quite Foreign Affairs or the Trilateral Commission, but it's not the Walla Walla Sunday Times. I mean, Foreign Policy magazine, they fashion themselves as a serious bunch of people there, think tankers and that. The editor of Foreign Policy, David Rothkopf, says that Mitch McConnell is a bigger threat to the United States than Kim Jong-un. I'm telling you, I can't keep up! I can't connect the dots. Everything is so upside down. Nothing makes common...

Which is, well, kinda what Sen. Mitch McConnell said yesterday. These are the same guys who sent out racist tweets about McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, and her Chinese heritage. Local news in Kentucky is reporting, via a Democratic official, that Progress Kentucky is behind the secret tapes published by Mother Jones this week, which revealed McConnell operatives in the act of…running a campaign. The story immediately went viral in political circles, not so much for the videos’ content as for McConnell’s pushback. The Republican senator quickly went on offense, decrying the left’s “Nixonian-style” tactics, and turning the non-story of the...

George Soros isn't behind everything the left does, but it sure seems like he helps fund it all. The lefty magazine Mother Jones released a tape , reportedly obtained from a Democratic Super PAC in Kentucky, in an effort to hurt Mitch McConnell's bid for reelection in the U.S. Senate. But, Mother Jones has funding baggage of its own.Mother Jones is the news outlet of The Foundation for National Progress, the left-wing "umbrella organization that exists to publish and support Mother Jones." It also founded the Media Consortium. The FNP received $485,000 in Soros funding in 2008. The Media Consortium,...

FOX NEWS: Jacob Conway, who is on the committee of Kentucky’s Jefferson County Democratic Party, revealed to Megyn Kelly moments ago that members of the liberal activist group Progress Kentucky bragged to him that they had made a secret recordings of a meeting held by Senator Mitch McConnell (R) without his consent. Earlier this week, tapes were released of McConnell and his aides discussing challengers in the upcoming election, particularly actress Ashley Judd. The FBI is now investigating the incident. According to Conway, Progress Kentucky’s Sean Riley and Curtis Morrison were in the hallway of McConnell’s campaign headquarters after an...

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative. Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2. Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting. Conway says neither the local nor the state Democratic party had any part...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to filibuster new gun control legislation, putting up a significant roadblock to Democratic efforts to move forward on the measure this week. ... McConnell is now the 15th Senator to sign on to the Republican gun control filibuster, an effort that has been spearheaded by conservative Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Mike Lee (R-Utah). As the top Senate Republican, McConnell's support gives the filibuster a much higher chance of success, imperiling the already-delicate bipartisan negotiations on new gun control measures. McConnell's promise to filibuster also deflates criticism from the more...

McConnell campaign asks for FBI investigation over leaked Ashley Judd tapes By Caitlin Dewey, Updated: April 9, 2013 Mitch McConnell’s campaign has accused opponents of bugging McConnell’s headquarters and has asked for an FBI investigation after a recording from an internal campaign meeting surfaced on Mother Jones this morning.The 12-minute tape reveals McConnell and his campaign staff lampooning then-potential candidate Ashley Judd, whom they call “a haystack of needles” or political liabilities, at a Feb. 2 meeting. Judd has since decided not to run.“We’ve always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Nixonian tactics to...

The FBI has been asked to investigate how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, a source close the McConnell re-election campaign tells CNN.

March 25, 2013 Ashley Judd suggests puzzling location for campaign headquarters Alex Pappas Liberal actress Ashley Judd has a puzzling location in mind for where she’d like to establish a campaign headquarters should she run for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky. During a keynote speech at the American Counseling Association’s 2013 conference in Cincinnati on Friday, Judd said that she’d use her famous mother’s garage as a campaign headquarters, according to local media reports. The problem? Her mother, country singer Naomi Judd, lives in Tennessee. Naomi Judd’s Leipers Fork, Tenn. home was featured on HGTV’s “Celebrities At Home” in June....

Mother Jones is shocked. The Huffington Post is shocked. The Left, everywhere, is shocked. It’s shocking. It’s really, really so terribly shocking. And appalling and disgusting. That in these times, here in the year of our deity (or no deity because that, too, is a valid life-path) 2013, terrible, misogynistic men like Steven Crowder still exist. This man-beast, this throwback to an unenlightened age, when women were forced to stay home and vacuum in high heels and pearls, clearly hates women, probably because he wasn’t breastfed hard enough. Steven Crowder is asked to speak at clandestine cabals like the Conservative...

Former President Bill Clinton has spoken to both Ashley Judd and Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes about the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky, encouraging them both to take a hard look at the race. ABC News has learned that Clinton encouraged Judd to enter the race and promised he would help her, according to several Kentucky political sources. That conversation happened sometime between the November election and President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Earlier this month Clinton met with Grimes, who is also weighing a bid, after he spoke at an event for former Kentucky Sen. Wendell Ford in...

It’s no surprise that many Hollywood actors and actresses are on the left side of the aisle. But what is a surprise -- and a nice one at that -- is to see some of them stand by their ideology even when many liberals on Capitol Hill will not. Last Wednesday, while many Democrats on Capitol Hill stood silent on a big civil liberties issue, one major celebrity went on twitter to chastise some of his ideological allies. On an issue that they are both passionate about, the liberal actor John Cusack -- the star of films like “Being...

Republicans must win the U.S. Senate in 2014. Yet Democrats are hoping Ashley Judd can appeal to the same shallow voters who re-elected Barack Obama. Judd is only 9 percentage points behind Mitch McConnell, according to a Republican polling firm Harper Polling. At this early stage of the Kentucky U.S. Senate race, 9 points down means Judd might gain traction over the next 20 months. Ashley Judd’s fame comes from a Country-Western musical family. In normal times, a Senate Minority Leader would be immune from serious challenge. But her mother Naomi Judd was born in Ashland, Kentucky. “US Senator Al...

Gov. Steve Beshear said Tuesday he has now talked with actress Ashley Judd about how “seriously” she’s considering running for U.S. Senate in 2014 against Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell. While Beshear would not go into detail on the conversation, he did say that he is convinced that Judd is “seriously considering a race for United States Senate in the Democratic primary.” Beshear told reporters Tuesday at a bill signing that he thinks Judd could be an “effective and formidable opponent” against McConnell in a general election. Beshear has a good idea of what that takes having lost by double-digit...

Tweets on Elaine Chao: 'They will not get away with attacking my wife,' Mitch McConnell says WINCHESTER, Ky. -- Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell lambasted a liberal group on Saturday for criticizing the Asian heritage of his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, calling its Twitter messages "racial slurs" and "the ultimate outrage." "They will not get away with attacking my wife in this campaign," McConnell told about 100 home-state supporters at a Republican dinner in Winchester. "This woman has the ear of @McConnellPress — she's his #wife," the group Kentucky Progress tweeted on Feb. 14. "May explain why your...

A new poll shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is struggling to retain support among voters. The Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll shows that twice as many voters are against McConnell as there are supporting him. It also finds that only one-third of Republicans support him in the 2014 election.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell admits he could face a tough primary challenge from the Tea Party in his home state of Kentucky. Since its inception the Tea Party has been critical of McConnell's leadership despite his efforts to make peace with the movement. The strife has increased in recent weeks, with over a dozen Tea Party groups in Kentucky warning that a primary challenger is forthcoming. McConnell says he doesn't have a sense of entitlement to the senate seat, and expects a vigorous campaign.

Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has been a United States senator for only 34 days, but already he is making his mark on national politics. His conspicuous presence and aggressive tone have thrilled his conservative cheerleaders, while inducing fits of rage in liberal detractors and Joe Scarborough. In the past week alone, Cruz has tangled with veteran Democratic spin-master Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Meet the Press, sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, introduced legislation to fully repeal Obamacare, and recorded “no” votes on major items, including Hurricane Sandy relief, raising the debt ceiling, filibuster reform, and...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is voicing confidence in the prospects for immigration reform in the House, saying that a bipartisan group of lawmakers “basically [has] an agreement” after more than three years of secret talks. -snip- Obama is preparing to launch a major push for comprehensive immigration reform with a speech in Las Vegas next week. Much of the spotlight has focused on the Senate, where a bipartisan group is reportedly close to announcing an agreement on basic principles for an overhaul of the system. That group now includes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a potential presidential contender who laid out...

Reid & McConnell are reportedly about to change the Senate rules It’s probably a harbinger of sell-outs to come. But Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell is apparently about to conclude an agreement with Majority Leader Harry Reid which would sell out pro-gunners and decimate minority rights under the Senate rules. This change could occur as early as Wednesday. If enacted, it could handcuff pro-gun forces and keep them from defeating the most radical initiatives aimed at restricting our Second Amendment rights. The first of two changes would allow Harry Reid -– and only Harry Reid –- to circumvent the hurdles...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) campaign is calling for supporters to back his opposition to expanded gun controls, warning in a new email that "they're coming for your guns." "You and I are literally surrounded. The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out-assault on the Second Amendment. On your rights. On your freedom," the email opens. It goes on to warn that "our freedom is under direct assault ... from those who want to shred our Constitution."

Just as moderates are completely unrepresented in a Democratic Party that's dominated by liberals, movement conservatives often don't feel represented by the Republican Party. At first glance, this seems rather odd since most Republicans in Congress are conservative. However, it's a natural reaction to the Republican establishment that has its hands welded to many of the GOP's levers of power. The Republican Party may be mostly conservative, but there are a multitude of reasons that you can't trust the establishment Republicans as far as you can throw them. 1) They have supreme confidence without supreme competence. Conservative talk show hosts,...

The White House flatly rejected Saturday the proposal for President Obama to bypass Congress in raising the nation’s borrowing limit, a day after the Senate’s top Democrats urged Mr. Obama to take that step. “There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills, or it can fail to act and put the nation into default,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “Congress needs to do its job.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, and other Democratic lawmakers wrote to Mr. Obama Friday urging that the president perform an...

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell federal spending and the country's debt will dominate the congressional agenda for the next three months, and that debate about potential gun legislation in the wake of the Connecticut school shooting will take a back seat.

Government spending is the No. 1 problem in America, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he won’t rule out a government shutdown if President Barack Obama refuses to address the country’s growing fiscal woes. “We now have a debt the size of our economy, which makes us look a lot like Greece,” McConnell said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “It’s a shame that the president doesn’t embrace the effort to reduce spending.” When host David Gregory asked McConnell about the debt ceiling, and whether Republicans would consider a government shutdown to force the issue of spending cuts, the...

An overwhelming number of House Republicans in a party meeting are calling on their leadership to amend the Senate’s bill to avert the fiscal cliff and send it back to the upper chamber, according to several sources in the Tuesday afternoon meeting. GOP leadership has not made a decision on what to do with the Senate-passed tax hike bill. They are using this meeting to listen to lawmaker concerns. They’ll have another meeting this afternoon, where a decision could come on whether to bring the bill to the floor. One thing is clear: there is serious disdain among House Republicans...

What's this? Joe Biden in weekend conversation with Mitch McConnell over how to step back from the fiscal cliff? Isn't Biden the man in charge of solving The Gun Problem? How does he have the time or energy -- not least the ideas -- to launch another rescue mission? Apparently he had none of these. Not much came, reportedly, of the Biden-McConnell negotiations. One is struck anyway by an infinitely larger question -- how did we as a society, as a nation, get to this point: wrapped in suspense while the government of the United States works out, or tries...

If you watched Obama’s comments this afternoon you would not be remiss to think it was actually a campaign event. Obama came out, flanked by ‘middle class Americans’ or what Twitchy aptly referred to as a “human rainbow,� and played the blame game all while reminding Americans Republicans that he won the election. Oh, and the “middle class taxpayers� repeatedly applauding when Obama took shots at Congress for its inaction thus far really helped set the pep rally vibe, too. GOP lawmakers weren’t thrilled with the comments, either: Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said President Obama likely lost votes for the...

Leading Democrats are putting together fallback proposals if Washington fails to reach a deal on the “fiscal cliff” that would allow the party to cast itself as seeking to cut taxes. “Of course, I’ve got a backup plan in the event that we don’t succeed here,” Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday. “I’m sure the White House has one too.” Tax rates are set to expire on most households in January if Congress does not act to extend some of the rates, something some Democrats have long seen as giving their party an advantage....

Looks like John Boehner may get his wish. After his Plan B collapsed, Boehner has insisted that the ball is in the Senate’s court, as the House has already passed legislation that would resolve the fiscal cliff. The Hill reports that Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are now working on a plan that they will reveal sometime tomorrow — as the eleventh hour ticks away: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are working on an agreement to avoid across-the-board tax hikes and plan to show it to colleagues Sunday.Senate leaders emerged optimistic from a...

Congressional leaders spoke Friday after meeting about the fiscal cliff with President Barack Obama at the White House. -snip- McConnell spoke immediately after Reid, saying, “I share the view of the majority leader. We had a good meeting down at the White House. “We are engaged in discussions, the majority leader and myself and the White House, in the hopes that we can come forward as early as Sunday and have a recommendation that I can make to my conference and the majority leader [Reid] can make to his conference and so we’ll be working hard to try and see...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is resisting pressure from Republicans pushing for the Senate to take a more active role to avoid the “fiscal cliff” after House legislation stalled Thursday. Reid has rejected Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assertion that avoiding the fiscal cliff now depends on President Obama working out a deal with the Senate. Reid’s allies said it is unrealistic to expect him and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to step in and hammer out an eleventh-hour agreement. On Friday, Reid dismissed McConnell’s proposal that he bring to the floor legislation extending tax rates that could be...

“Obsequious praise for small government does the Republicans no good when they too are in favor of big government in their actions.� Over the next couple of years, Barack Obama wants to raise the national debt to $18.9 trillion or so. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the congressional Republicans want to raise the national debt to $18.4 trillion or so.The present leadership of the Republican Party has gone from making the case that government is the problem and the American people are the solution to making the case that Democratic controlled government is the problem and Republican controlled government is...

Democrats have said that that their priorities when it comes to a fiscal cliff deal are to raise more tax revenue and make the tax code more progressive. Which is why it's odd to see them drawing a line in the sand on raising tax rates. Raising marginal income tax rates is one of the most economically harmful ways to raise taxes. (The only provisions of the tax code that are more damaging are the corporate income tax and taxes on savings and investments.) Perhaps the only explanation is that Democrats don't actually care about how to efficiently accomplish their...

Negotiations can’t be going too well if the Senate Minority leader is openly scoffing at President Obama’s “bipartisan” plan to solve the looming “fiscal cliff” crisis. Yikes: Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, says he “burst into laughter” Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined the administration proposal for averting the fiscal cliff. He wasn’t trying to embarrass Geithner, McConnell says, only responding candidly to his one-sided plan, explicit on tax increases, vague on spending cuts. Geithner’s visit to his office left McConnell discouraged about reaching a “balanced” deal on tax hikes and spending reductions designed to prevent a shock...

Soon to be the lone Democrat in Ky.'s delegation, Yarmuth to meet at White House to discuss appointments U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville told Pure Politics he is meeting this week with White House officials to go over potential federal appointments in preparation for being the lone Democrat in Kentucky’s congressional delegation. The election loss of U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler of Versailles leaves Yarmuth as Kentucky’s only member of Congress in President Barack Obama’s party. That will mean he will take on more responsibility in facilitating judicial and U.S. Attorney appointments, as the Courier-Journal first reported. Yarmuth told Pure...

Actress Ashley Judd's name is being thrown out as a Democratic challenger to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2014. Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) listed her as a possibility. "If you had an Ashley Judd-McConnell race, I think it would be as high profile a race as Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown," Yarmuth said in an interview with the Courier-Journal of Kentucky, referring to the Massachusetts Senate candidates. Judd has been active in Democratic politics. She was a delegate at the Democratic National Committee and also taped campaign ads for President Obama. McConnell has begun gearing up for his...