mitch mcconnell

Nothing shocking here. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took to the chamber floor this morning to decry the Democrats’ $848 billion health reform bill, unveiled about 15 hours earlier.
After six weeks of drafting a bill behind closed doors, the Majority has produced a bill that increases premiums, raises taxes, and slashes Medicare by half [...]

Rand Paul, the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), has surprised a lot of people by surging in polls and fundraising to quasi-frontrunner status in next year’s U.S. Senate race in Kentucky. But Chris Cillizza reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is weighing in against Paul and hosting a fundraiser for Trey Grayson, [...]

Yesterday’s announcement that the Obama administration will try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 suspects in federal court has been hailed as everything from “an important step forward for justice” by Human Rights Watch to “a step backwards for the security of our country [that] puts Americans unnecessarily at risk” by Senate Minority Leader [...]

It’s hard to ascertain the impact of Senate candidate Rand Paul’s honest, impolitic statement that he’d consider backing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) over Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The latter man would, of course, be Paul’s colleague from Kentucky if he does make it to the Senate. Trey Grayson, the Republican secretary of state who’s having [...]

The Senate will hold a procedural vote tomorrow at 12:15 p.m. to limit debate on legislation extending unemployment benefits in all states, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) just announced on the chamber floor. Senate rules mandate that the final vote can’t come earlier than 30 hours after the cloture vote. To expedite final passage, however, Durbin [...]

It’s Groundhog Day in the Senate.
After voting 85-2 yesterday to proceed to legislation extending unemployment benefits at least 14 weeks nationwide, the Senate remains stalled Tuesday over a second procedural vote required to move to final passage.
Delaying the bill are (1) Republican leaders insisting on consideration of unrelated amendments, and (2) Senate rules requiring two [...]

After three weeks of stalling over controversial amendments to legislation extending unemployment benefits, Senate GOP leaders are floating a new message as they criticize the way Democrats have managed the process: they’re trying to paint the unemployment insurance debate as a kind of forewarning of what might happen as the Senate moves to health reform [...]

Moments ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) shot down a motion by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to proceed to legislation extending federal unemployment insurance by up to 20 weeks in the states hit hardest by the recession. It marks the fourth time in three weeks that GOP leaders have prevented the bill from [...]

In the wake of yesterday’s Senate vote on an unemployment insurance extension, there’s been some confusion — including among TWI commenters — about what exactly happened. And what happens next.
Here’s the bad news for those having exhausted their benefits: The vote on cloture to proceed to the bill doesn’t mean that the bill has [...]

This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) squared off on the chamber floor over how to proceed on legislation to extend unemployment benefits at least 14 weeks. Needless to say, they failed to reach an agreement, with McConnell rejecting Reid’s motion to scrap tomorrow’s cloture vote and move [...]