Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell

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Bill Clinton’s rehab appears complete

It’s getting difficult to remember that the 42nd president of the United States was impeached by the House, tried in the Senate and then acquitted of the so-called “high crimes and misdemeanors” he was accused of committing.

The latest evidence of that is former President Clinton’s appearance in Kentucky of all places, where he is campaigning on behalf of a Democratic challenger to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Allison Lundergan Grimes is seeking to unseat the veteran Republican senator, so she brought in the Big Dog to help her: William Jefferson Clinton.

Clinton is going where the current Democratic president, Barack Obama, dare not venture.

Let’s recall an important fact here. Clinton carried Kentucky twice in his two campaigns for the presidency. He won them both barely, but he won them. Yes, it can be argued that he had some help with the presence of Texas zillionaire H. Ross Perot on the ballot in 1992 and 1996, but I’ve never quite bought into the notion that Perot was responsible for Clinton’s two electoral victories, as national surveys indicated he took roughly equal numbers of votes from Republicans as well as Democrats.

The point, though, is that Clinton’s political rehabilitation now appears to be complete.

The man who was impeached for lying to a grand jury about a sexual affair with a White House intern has emerged as one of the more consequential ex-presidents in U.S. history. His Clinton Global Initiative targets crises around the world and lends support — and money — to nations and people in need. He remains politically active here at home. His wife, Hillary, is considering a run for the presidency again in 2016 and you can bet he’ll be hitting the stump for her as well.

It’s an amazing thing to see. A man who could have been kicked out of the presidency had he been convicted of those mostly partisan charges has come out burnished and all shiny on the other side.

Democrats with stars in their eyes want him to speak on their behalf.

So help me, they are going to write books on this incredible story of political redemption.

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Sen. McConnell casts correct vote on debt ceiling

Mitch McConnell isn’t one of my favorite U.S. senators.

However, the Kentucky Republican cast a vote that might get him in trouble with an even more annoying bunch of politicians … the folks who comprise the tea party wing of the GOP.

You go, Sen. McConnell.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/mitch-mcconnell-debt-ceiling-103564.html?hp=l1

McConnell voted to approve an increase in the national debt ceiling, enabling the government to borrow more money to pay its bills. To do otherwise, said the Senate minority leader, would be to bring on catastrophe.

He voted to “protect” the country, he said.

That won’t go down well with tea party activists back home in Kentucky, where he’s facing a GOP primary challenge and a possibly stern challenge from the Democrats this fall — if he survives the primary battle.

McConnell was forced to cast the vote after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, forced his hand in a procedural motion on the Senate floor. McConnell had hoped to approve the debt ceiling increase without having to have his name displayed so prominently. Cruz would have none of it.

I’m betting now that McConnell and the Cruz Missile aren’t exactly the best of friends.

McConnell leaned toward his good-government instincts in voting to approve the debt limit without attaching any spending-reduction strings.

“We were confronted with a clean debt ceiling in the Senate or default. I believe I have to act in the best interests of the country, and every time we’ve been confronted with a potential crisis, the guy you’re looking at is the one who stepped up to solve the problem,” McConnell told reporters.

The alternative, defaulting on our obligations, was a non-starter.

McConnell deserves thanks, not condemnation.

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Re-election hill steepens some for incumbents

The Gallup Poll organization reports something that might give congressional incumbents plenty of pause as they campaign for re-election.

Listen up, Rep. Mac Thornberry.

It is that 46 percent of Americans — a record low — would vote to re-elect their member of Congress in 2014.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/24/poll_record_low_would_re-elect_representative_121344.html

That’s down from 59 percent in 2012, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

Get this as well: It’s split evenly among Democrats and Republicans, at 18 percent for members of each party.

Why should this concern incumbents? Republicans in particular have shown this penchant for — as the late Texas state Sen. Teel Bivins used to say — “eating their young.” Tea party insurgents keep popping up to challenge “establishment Republican” incumbents. It’s happening in the 13th Congressional District — which Thornberry represents — with two challengers trying to outflank the incumbent on the right. The same is true in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is being challenged by the tea party, as is Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

It’s no secret that this appears to be the season of discontent with Congress. Polls show congressional approval in the low teens, which actually is a slight improvement from late in 2013, when it slid into the single digits.

How will this end up? It could end well for incumbents, but only perhaps when Congress can re-learn the art of legislating, which involves some compromise between the parties.

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Kumbaya moment? Forget about it

Well, that was a brief moment of “Kumbaya” for congressional Republicans and Democrats.

Now we’re apparently back to business as usual over the Affordable Care Act and whether to increase the federal debt ceiling.

Such madness is hard to eradicate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/193408-mcconnell-says-gop-preparing-for-debt-ceiling-fight

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says Republicans are ready for a fight over raising the debt ceiling. They want to make changes in the Affordable Care Act in exchange for increasing the nation’s borrowing limit.

Sound familiar? It should. We’ve been through this already. It’s as tiresome as ever.

The Kumbaya moment was supposed to have occurred when a bipartisan committee of House members and senators approved a two-year budget and spending plan that would forestall another partial government shutdown. The House voted overwhelmingly to approve it and it appears headed to an equally decisive “yea” vote in the Senate.

It was nice while it lasted, albeit briefly. Now congressional Republicans are threating — once more — to hold the debt ceiling hostage and threaten to force the U.S. government to renege on its financial obligations. Why? Because they just cannot stand the Affordable Care Act.

The government will reach its debt ceiling early in 2014. The fight will commence shortly. Democrats will tell us once more than defaulting on our debts would be catastrophic, a point that many economists agree with. Republicans will insist on concessions before lifting the ceiling.

Here we go once more.

The Grand Old Party should listen to one of its own: House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, one of the architects of the just-completed budget deal. Ryan said that compromise means no one gets everything they want. Yet compromise is what’s needed to get things done, he said.

Chairman Ryan also conceded that his party lost the 2012 presidential election and that “elections do have consequences.”

Don’t do this, GOP.

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Cruz making more enemies daily

Sen. Ted Cruz cannot possibly understand what he’s doing.

The Texas Republican seems to be doing everything possible, all within his power, to alienate the leadership of his party, not to mention the elders of the U.S. Senate where he has served all of nine months.

As Dana Milbank notes in his Washington Post column, Cruz has done what was thought to be virtually impossible, which is create a massive amount of wreckage in record time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-in-debt-limit-and-shutdown-defeat-ted-cruz-is-one-sore-loser/2013/10/16/d896d180-36b4-11e3-ae46-e4248e75c8ea_story.html?hpid=z7

McConnell brokered a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that reopened the government and staved off a default of our national debt obligations. That wasn’t acceptable to Sen. Cruz, who said the Washington “establishment” caved in. To whom he wasn’t entirely clear.

Cruz then stormed in front of a bank of TV cameras at the very time McConnell was making his own statement about the deal. I am quite certain the Senate’s chief Republican is not going to forget what Cruz said and did any time soon. As McConnell was trying to put some kind of positive spin on what he and Reid accomplished, Cruz was turning the spin in precisely the opposite direction.

Team player? All for one and one for all? Neither of those notions has a place in Ted Cruz’s vocabulary.

Cruz said the Senate should have “listened to the American people.” My hunch is that the 81 senators who voted for the McConnell-Reid deal were listening to the people — who were telling them to end this madness, to get the government operating fully and to avoid plunging this nation into default.

It’s Ted Cruz who needs to have his hearing checked.

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Self-awareness has gone AWOL in Senate

The Huffington Post has taken note of a patently hilarious reaction to the deal struck by the Senate to end the government shutdown, which also increases the national debt limit.

It is that the U.S. Senate comprises 100 individuals who have next to zero self-awareness.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/senate-budget-crisis_n_4112253.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

There they were, applauding themselves for all the hard they did in getting the deal done. The applause seems to ignore the reality of what brought us to the brink of fiscal calamity — which was the senators’ role, along with the House of Representatives, in creating the problem in the first place.

Indeed, watching Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell pat each other — and themselves — on the back for all that work will present late-night comedians plenty of grist for the foreseeable future.

None of this needed to happen. None of the federal employees who were furloughed without pay needed to suffer. The nation did not need to endure this drama. Americans did not need to wonder whether their retirement accounts were going to evaporate because Congress and the White House couldn’t reach a deal sooner.

The deal struck, let us remember, provides only a short-term relief. More drama is just around the corner.

And for this the Senate is congratulating itself?

Give me a break.

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Senate moves ahead; House stumbles and bumbles

Can this actually be happening? The U.S. Senate is close to a deal that would forestall a default on our nation’s obligations while the House of Representatives cannot even reel in all the members of the party that runs the lower chamber?

And is the result going to be that the United States actually defaults and sends investment accounts into some abyss?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/15/politics/shutdown-showdown/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

What in the world is happening to our legislative branch of government?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said late Tuesday that “we’re in good shape,” meaning that he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been talking to each other, along with their parties’ leadership teams. They’re trying to reach a deal that is acceptable to all members of the Senate.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Capitol Building, Boehner is trying to fend off the insurgents within his own party. So far, he’s failing badly.

If this whole thing explodes, I am thinking the clock will start ticking down the time Boehner will remain as speaker. Either his own party will throw him over, or the voters will do so in November 2014 when they hand control of the House over to the Democrats.

Senators, who believe bipartisanship still seems to matter, need to persuade their House colleagues of the disaster that awaits them all if they cannot get a deal done … now.

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FNGs making their mark on D.C.

The new breed of congressmen and women who have taken over the Republican caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives intended to change Washington for the better.

Their obstructionism has done the reverse. It has created a poisonous atmosphere in the nation’s capital.

I want to introduce a time-honored term to describe these folks, comprising mostly the tea party wing of their party.

Let’s call them FNGs.

Vietnam War veterans known the term well. It was used — often disparagingly — to describe the “new guys” who cycled “in-country.” They would walk off their plane wearing dark green jungle fatigues and shiny new boots. You could spot an FNG a mile away. The “NG” stands for “new guy.” The “F”? Well, it stands for arguably the most functionally descriptive term in the English language. I’ll leave it at that.

The FNGs who now populate a segment of the GOP have accomplished one important goal of their overall mission. They have made their mark. They’ve changed the debate in Washington. They have made their presence felt, just as they promised they would when they campaigned for their congressional offices in 2010 and 2012.

Perhaps the most well-known FNG has been Texas’s own Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican pistol who blabbed for 21 hours in a faux filibuster to protest the Affordable Care Act and who has scolded his colleagues publicly for failing to demonstrate the proper commitment to bringing change. He’s been scolded in return by his party elders, such as Sen. John McCain, for impugning the character of current and former senators — such as Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

The FNGs now have taken us to the brink of default on our national fiscal obligations. It would be the first time in history that the nation has failed to pay its bills. The gray eminences of both parties know what’s at stake. The FNGs don’t have a clue. They’re about to find out if they stand in the way of a compromise reportedly being hammered out by two senior senators — Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell.

Here’s some good news. They won’t be FNGs forever. It’ll take some time for them to get some seasoning. They’ll have to learn how to compromise and understand that other public officials represent constituencies with different points of view. Not everyone shares the FNGs’ world view.

I just hope they don’t contribute to the destruction of our government before they wise up.

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Will House of Reps take Senate deal?

Here’s my gazillion-dollar question: Suppose Sens. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell strike a deal that the entire Senate can endorse to reopen the federal government and extend the nation’s debt ceiling a few months, will the House of Representatives follow suit, or will the tea party — aka wacko — wing of the party sink it?

The Senate has taken the lead on negotiating a deal to end this madness — at least for now. The House leadership tried and failed to reach an agreement with the White House.

House Speaker John Boehner is being held captive by the insurgents within his own Republican Party. He cannot control about 30 of them, the so-called tea party wing. They’ve been able to stall just about everything in the House.

If the Senate approves a deal and sends it to the House, will the House then dig in its heels simply because it can, and then risk the economic futures of millions of Americans — a majority of whom blame Congress for this mess in the first place?

The House comprises 435 members, most of whom are Republicans. Of those Republicans, most of them comprise the so-called “establishment wing” of the party. The tea party cabal consists of a small minority. However, they’re calling the cadence in the people’s chamber.

It’s past time for the speaker to exert the authority he has to get a deal done. Now. Before it’s too late.

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March on DC event lacked bipartisan flavor

I watched a lot of the 50th anniversary celebration of the March on Washington event this week and came away with a single disappointment.

There was no sign of leading Republicans at the speaker’s podium.

Of course, leave it to the likes of Fox News loudmouth Bill O’Reilly to claim falsely that “no Republicans were invited” to speak.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/28/bill-oreilly-falsely-claims-republicans-barred/195656

Turns out there were invitations extended. Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, got invited but declined — understandably — for health reasons. House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor were invited, but couldn’t attend because of “scheduling conflicts.” Same is true, I suppose, for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The scheduling conflict dodge does bother me. All of these individuals knew long ago that this event was on the calendar. If they wanted to attend this event, they certainly could have had their schedulers ensure they would be available to take part — don’t you think?

Absent their presence anywhere near the DC Mall this week, many of the speeches were tinged with a bit too much partisan rancor from those who argued against legislation to make voting more restrictive, which is a largely Republican initiative being pushed on Capitol Hill and in state capitol buildings throughout the South — and that includes Texas.

There once was a time, about 50 years ago, when Democrats and Republicans locked arms for a single cause, which was equality for all Americans. I was hoping the two parties could put aside their differences to mark the 50th anniversary of one of the great days of the American civil rights movement.

Maybe next time.