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17 Mar 2010 08:50

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Politics: Mitch McConnell’s fundamental strategy: Don’t let Dems win

His words: “If the proponents of the bill were able to say it was bipartisan, it tended to convey to the public that this is O.K., they must have figured it out.” source

21 Feb 2010 23:37

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Politics: Max Headroom: Mitch McConnell swears on live TV. Awesome!


  • Skip to the 2:00 mark Mitch McConnell said a lot of stuff about health care and how he hates the Democrats in this interview on “Fox News Sunday,” but we only heard him say one word. And yes, it’s a profanity. Way to go, Senator! You’re a regular Rahm Emanuel!

  • Mike Pence can’t spell On “Meet the Press,” Rep. Mike Pence manages to get past the creepy guy at the 5 second mark to complain about the upcoming health care summit, which he claims the Democrats will spell S-E-T-U-P. Wait a second …

  • Bayh a “corporatist”? On “Larry King Live” the other night, Bill Maher said some damning things about Evan Bayh. “He’ll become a lobbyist now, which is what he was before.” Oof! The meat is in the first minute and a half, but the rest is good, too.

21 Feb 2010 11:47

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Politics: Mitch McConnell punishes the world with another zinger

  • On health care: “The only thing bipartisan about it would be the opposition to it.” Zing! The Senate Minority Leader was on Fox News this morning talking about the possibility that health care could be saved, and he noted that the Democrats could salvage it using budget reconciliation (public option in tow), which would only require a simple up-down vote. “Whether there will be 11 Democrats who will vote against it is not clear,” he noted. source

17 Jan 2010 21:30

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Politics: Max Headroom: MLK reminds us how far our discourse has fallen


  • One way to think of it … Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a.k.a. the guy who ticks us off with his useless quips, claims the Massachusetts senate race is a “referendum” on health care. It might just be, but what we’d like to see is a referendum on stalling tactics like Mr. McConnell’s.

  • … and another way On the other side of the aisle, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, who we’ve seen thus far as kind of a left-leaning screen chewer in the vein of a Fox News host, said that he’d “try to vote ten times” to keep Scott Brown from winning. Sorry, friends, but this isn’t cool, either. (Hat tip @jessehines)

  • Blast from the past For a little perspective on the state of talk show chatter, here’s a clip from Martin Luther King Jr.’s last interview with Meet the Press back in 1967. We’ve devolved far from this sort of televised debate. We’ve gone from this to crap like Ed Schultz’s blabbering. We’ve fallen far.

24 Dec 2009 09:50

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U.S.: Campaign contributions didn’t affect the vote that much, it seems

  • $9.27 million the amount Republican John McCain has gotten from the health care industry; Orrin Hatch and Mitch McConnell were also well-compensated
  • $8.34 million the amount Democrat John Kerry got; Max Baucus (the bill’s biggest influencer) and Arlen Specter also got slightly bigger paydays than Hatch & McConnell source

21 Dec 2009 01:46

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Politics: Health Care: Here’s Sen. Mitch McConnell being snippy again

  • The impact of this vote will long outlive this one frantic, snowy weekend in Washington. This legislation will reshape our nation, and Americans have already issued their verdict – they don’t want it.
  • Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell • Discussing the landmark health care vote. The Kentucky senator is the public face of severe partisanship that’s shaped our political sphere over the last six months. This guy’s in a position of leadership, and it seems like all he can do is come up with new one-liners like this one rather than actually help craft something useful. Maybe, Mitch, if you had spent the last six months helping build a health care bill – or better, helping your party meet the Democrats halfway – you’d have a reasonable voice in this debate. That’s our real problem with the health care bill – it’s never been about finding a unified solution on both sides. It’s always been 100% about finding a way to screw the other guys. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s damaging and becomes less about helping out Americans and more about being on top. source

07 Dec 2009 21:14

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Politics: Mitch McConnell is an old man who does nothing but complain

  • If your goal was to come up with a plan for financial ruin, you couldn’t come up with a better idea than cutting a program by $500 billion and simultaneously expanding the number of people it is required to cover.
  • Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell • Making another one of his snippy comments about the health care bill. It’s too bad he’s saying it about a potential breakthrough for the bill in the Senate. The latest idea being bandied about: Allow lower-income people as young as 55 to bask in the glory that is Medicare. Now, McConnell does have a point about this – they’re cutting Medicare AND adding people to it – but then again, it’s not like this jerk has actually come up with a solution besides “complain more and stonewall any reasonable progress.” Do more than that and we’ll give you credit. source
 

04 Oct 2009 23:06

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U.S.: John Ensign shows how a sex scandal can quickly ruin your life

  • may Ensign, a Nevada senator, looked like one of the great hopes for the Republican Party in 2012 and was regularly named as a possible presidential candidate.
  • october Battered after months of dealing with a sex scandal with a staffer, Ensign can’t even get love from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Ouch. source

09 Aug 2009 21:22

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Politics: Max Headroom: Evidence Howard Dean is more than a scream

  • Dean v. Newt Howard Dean and Newt Gingrich – two former rising stars from another era – still have their hands in the political cookie jar, and both have a lot to say about the health care debate (be sure to watch part two, too). In this debate of wits, Dean gets the upper hand.

  • Economics for clunkersKentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell chatted with Fox News about the Cash for Clunkers plan, saying that “if you pay people to buy TVs, or refrigerators, or … that sort of thing, people will go out and do it.” He leans hard on the fiscal conservatism line here.

  • So, how’s Kim Jong-Il?We know what you’re thinking. Bill Clinton went to North Korea and hasn’t told the world about Kim Jong-Il yet. Fortunately, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones relayed it to the world on “Meet the Press.” He says Kim is still firmly in power of his country.

19 Jul 2009 17:45

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Politics: Max Headroom: Trashing on Canada, remembering Cronkite

  • A friend in Canada … On “Meet the Press,” top-ranking Sen. Mitch McConnell discounts the idea of health care for all Americans using an argument involving both Ford Motor Co. and a friend of a friend who died because Canada wouldn’t allow him to get a medical procedure. Hm.

  • “It was about news”CBS’ Bob Schieffer, who’s had a full weekend of comments about Walter Cronkite to make, makes yet another one on CNN about what made Cronkite stand out – he cared about the news above all else. “He loved no scoop better than HIS scoop,” Schieffer said.

  • From bad to worseFox News had a friendly chat this morning with Obama budget wizard Peter Orszag, who says that the economy is worse than anyone thought – backed by unemployment figures. “You can’t go from job losses of 700,000 a month … to job growth like that,” he said.