Tag: mitch mcconnell

Politico is shocked, shocked! to see that Mitch McConnell can run a campaign.

When you shear away all the fluff, ham-handed politicking, and let’s-poke-the-Republicans-with-a-stick troublemaking, what you’re left with in this Politico article is pretty much this: Mitch McConnell wants to win his Senate election next year – and he’s apparently got a good idea on how to do that, damn his eyes*.  Seriously, this is their big revelation?

[Reid’s people say that McConnell’s strategy will be to] organize early, raise big money early to scare off opponents, scorch potential rivals to shape the field, push back against polling showing vulnerabilities to depress potential rivals and third-party groups, bolster the state party that each effectively runs and invest in new technology to run an even better campaign than their previous one.

…yes, as opposed to Mitch McConnell stripping himself naked, painting his body with purple and green woad, and doing the Fish Dance at the next debate. Continue reading Politico is shocked, shocked! to see that Mitch McConnell can run a campaign.

And Mitch McConnell even ordered Obama his favorite: red wine.

Think about it.

(H/T: Instapundit) You know, when you have Maureen Dowd telling you to go talk to the Senate Minority Leader…

“Some folks still don’t think I spend enough time with Congress,” [Barack Obama] said in an alleged joke at the dinner Saturday night. “ ‘Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell?’ they ask. Really? Why don’t you get a drink with Mitch McConnell.”

[blah blah blah oh, wait, stuff about Gitmo and how Obama’s not doing anything about that]

…Congress put restrictions on transfers of individuals to other countries with bad security situations. But, since 2012, Congress has granted authority to the secretary of defense to waive those restrictions on a case-by-case basis. The administration hasn’t made use of that power once. So it’s a little stale to blame Congress at this point.

The senior senator from Kentucky has been a leader in Keep-Terrorists-Offshore. Maybe, if the president really wants to close Gitmo, he should have a drink with Mitch McConnell. Really.

Continue reading And Mitch McConnell even ordered Obama his favorite: red wine.

John Boehner, Mitch McConnell should attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.

The President can’t be bothered to go himself, you see.  Or – and this is the actually offensive part – send anybody currently from the administration.

Whitehall sources have revealed that the US delegation at tomorrow’s service in St Paul’s Cathedral will be led by two Reagan era secretaries of state: James Baker and George Shultz.

Though President Obama himself had not been expected to attend, there had been speculation that he would be represented either by Vice President Joe Biden or wife Michelle. However, the Obama administration had said it would not be attending Thatcher’s funeral before the Boston bombings…

The excuse here for the lack of the VP or FLOTUS is this, I kid you not:

[A US Embassy spokesman] said that both the First Lady and the Vice President were ‘the President’s point people on gun control’, adding: ‘This is a week when there is a lot of movement on Capitol Hill on gun control issues.’

Continue reading John Boehner, Mitch McConnell should attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.

Kentucky’s karmic backlash against Democrats, summarized.

I don’t know whether this qualifies as irony:

In 2003, McConnell v. FEC temporarily determined that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act – usually called “McCain-Feingold,” after the two Constitutional illiterates that inflicted this law on the rest of us – was in fact Constitutional.  The reaction to this was to create various types of organizations that could operate around the new restrictions on free speech; one of these types of organization is something known as a “super-PAC.”  Super-PACs continued to exist even after the Supreme Court came partially to its senses and restored key free speech rights in Citizens United v. FEC; and in a fine bit of hypocrisy, the Democratic party and the Left has wholeheartedly adopted using such groups for various purposes, including the occasional deniable attack run (as was possibly discussed in a shadowy December meeting that allegedly involved groups like Mother Jones and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington).  The most recent example of this would be the attacks made by “Progress Kentucky,” which have catastrophically blown up in the Left’s collective face (like, say, Mother Jones and CREW); it is now somewhat more likely that said attacks will instead help re-elect… Senator Mitch McConnell, who brought the original lawsuit against McCain-Feingold in the first place.

Ironic?  Possibly not.  Hysterical?  Hoo, yeah.

Moe Lane

PS: You know, if you had told me last year that large sections of the Right would be shaking their heads in horrified admiration at McConnell at this point, I’d have laughed in your face.

QotD, The Cornered Rats At Progress Kentucky Turn On Each Other edition.

Entertaining:

Progress Kentucky’s founder, Shawn Reilly, has denied responsibility for [a possibly-illegal and definitely ill-advised recording of Sen Mitch McConnell and his staff] — which is now under investigation by the FBI — and has instead saddled the blame with Curtis Morrison, whom Reilly’s attorney calls a “former volunteer” for the PAC.

No loyalty.  No loyalty at all, eh?

Via AoSHQ.

Kentucky Democrat alleges Progress Kentucky behind Mitch McConnell wiretap.

I’m not going to be cute about this:

  • Progress Kentucky is a racist organization.  We know this because they went after Mitch McConnell’s wife for being, apparently, a spy for the Chinese.
  • Progress Kentucky is a crazy organization.  We know this because they thought that Ashley Judd was a viable candidate for Kentucky Senate (nobody else did, honestly).
  • And, allegedly, Progress Kentucky is a stupid organization.  We suspect this because Kentucky Democrats are confessing that the organization apparently bragged about taping Mitch McConnell and staff during a strategy session:

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.

[snip]

“They were in the hallway after the, I guess after the celebration and hoopla ended, apparently these people broke for lunch and had a strategy meeting, which is, in every campaign I’ve been affiliated with, makes perfect sense,” says Conway. “One of them held the elevator, the other one did the recording and they left. That was what they told to me from them directly.”

Continue reading Kentucky Democrat alleges Progress Kentucky behind Mitch McConnell wiretap.

Update on Le Affaire Mitch McConnell.

Let us unpack this CYA from Mother Jones on the tape that they released today:

Update 4/Mother Jones Statement: We are still waiting for Sen. Mitch McConnell to comment on the substance of the article. Before posting, we contacted his Senate office and his campaign office—in particular, his campaign manager, Jesse Benton—and no one responded. As the story makes clear, we were recently provided with the tape by a source who wishes to remain anonymous. We published the article on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but it is our understanding that the tape was not the product of any kind of bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that, except to say that under the circumstances, our publication of the article is both legal and protected by the First Amendment.

Background: MJ got its hands on an audio tape that had Mitch McConnell and his staff discussing how to make Ashley Judd regret that she had ever decided to run for office.  They then published it, despite the fact that a) Ashley Judd effectively did publicly regret that she had ever decided to run for office and b) the information in the tape would hardly be a surprise to anybody familiar with political campaigns.  But then there was a new wrinkle: Mitch McConnell called the FBI.  Potential wiretap law violations, you understand. Continue reading Update on Le Affaire Mitch McConnell.

Mother Jones, Mitch McConnell, & Ashley Judd.

A few things that I’m taking away from this (forwarded) Mother Jones “expose” of Mitch McConnell’s Ashley Judd oppo research:

  • The whole thing reminds me of the Washington Post‘s ongoing (and rather pathetic) attempts to recreate that one, perfect fix that the WaPo had in 2006 when they destroyed George Allen’s Senate career.  Yes, David Corn, last year you folks got your hands on a video that harmed a Republican campaign.  Congratulations.  Have a cookie.  But it’s never as good the second time, huh?
  • And in this particular case… yeah.  Um. Shorn of its finger waggling, the article indicates that Mitch McConnell was looking forward to running against somebody who: has really strange opinions on coal, parenting, and American society; a history of mental depression and frankly mildly erratic behavior; and had made somewhat demeaning cracks about the state that she wanted to run in.  Here’s a news flash: so were the rest of us in the VRWC. In other words?  There’s nothing new here. Continue reading Mother Jones, Mitch McConnell, & Ashley Judd.

Progress Kentucky: inbred, racist, xenophobic hicks.

Or, the Kentucky Curb-stomp.

Let me start by noting something: yes, many people have at least a small problem with Mitch McConnell. Including myself, sometimes. But that does not mean that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy will simply tolerate anybody calling his wife a traitorous double agent for the ChiComs. Which is what the rabidly liberal Super PAC (the Democrats still have those? Hypocrites) Progress Kentucky just did.

Recently, the group turned its attention to McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, with a focus on her race.

In a Feb. 14 Twitter message, Progress says: “This woman has the ear of (Sen. McConnell)—she’s his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!”

[snip]

Other messages from Progress’s social networking account about Chao have run for the past several days, saying her “Chinese (money)” is buying state elections.

Continue reading Progress Kentucky: inbred, racist, xenophobic hicks.

Mitch McConnell: No, there will be no tax hikes to replace the sequester.

This is a pretty clear statement.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he would not accept a plan to avert the sequester by raising taxes, just days before Democrats are expected to propose exactly that.

“My constituents in Kentucky will not accept a tax hike in the place of spending cuts that were already agreed to by both parties,” McConnell said. “We agreed to reduce this amount of spending in October of 2011, without raising taxes. We’ve already made this agreement.

“The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

Continue reading Mitch McConnell: No, there will be no tax hikes to replace the sequester.