Tag: Mitch McConnell

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Goes “Nuclear” On Judge Gorsuch Vote

Sen. Mitch McConnell

From Huffington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his fellow Republicans pulled the nuclear rules trigger Thursday, ending filibusters for Supreme Court nominees after Democrats blocked President Donald Trump’s conservative pick, Neil Gorsuch.

Democrats had argued that Gorsuch, a Colorado federal appeals judge, was simply too conservative, and were nearly united in opposing a cloture vote to end debate on the nominee. Opposing cloture amounts to a formal filibuster, which takes 60 votes to break. With just a few Democrats joining the chamber’s 52 Republicans, McConnell’s only way to confirm Gorsuch was to change the rules.

He began by launching a string of procedural moves to allow a Senate majority to change longstanding rules with a simple majority, or 51 votes.

What this means is, now and moving forward, all Supreme Court nominees will only need 51 votes to be confirmed.

While this serves the Republicans now, at some point in the future the Dems will have the majority. And the shoe will be on the other foot.

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Mitch McConnell Gets Trolled On Twitter For Inaction On Guns

https://twitter.com/SenateMajLdr/status/742379367477678080 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got called out on Twitter today by a follower who felt strongly about inaction on the part of Congress for doing nothing in the wake of mass gun shootings across the country, the latest being the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Florida that left 49 victims dead and 53 more hospitalized.

https://twitter.com/Ryan_Mourton/status/742386149579071490

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: No Vote On Any SCOTUS Nominee This Year

In a speech from the floor of the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) repeated his stance that Senate Republicans will not allow any nominee put forward by President Obama to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Presidents have a right to nominate just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent. In this case, the Senate will withhold it,” McConnell said. “The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter after the American people finish making in November the decision they’ve already started making today.”

The U. S. Constitution tasks the president with the responsibility to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, and charges the Senate to “advise and consent.” No where in the Constitution does it say the Senate can “withhold” it’s responsibility.

And folks wonder why Congress has such low approval numbers?

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Mitch McConnell Takes Credit For US Economy After ONE Day As Senate Majority Leader

Just ONE day into his role as Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) takes credit for the good news on the American economy saying it’s all about the fact that Republican have a brand new majority in Congress:

“After so many years of sluggish growth, we’re finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope; the uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama administration’s long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress,” McConnell said on Wednesday. “So this is precisely the right time to advance a positive, pro-growth agenda.”

The Democratic National Committee thought the comment was more than hysterical, emailing a statement with the subject line “DNC to McConnell: Hahahahahahahahahahaha.”

Here’s the statement from DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee:

Hahahahahahahahahahaha. That Mitch McConnell is one funny guy. He likes to remind people all the time that he’s not a scientist. Now we know he’s not a mathematician or an economist either.

The fact is, under President Obama we’ve had 57 straight months of private sector job growth leading to nearly 11 million jobs added.

All Republicans have given us is a government shutdown that cost the economy $24 billion.

I get why he wants to take credit for the economic recovery. But maybe he should first do something to help contribute to it.