Ilhan Omar Leans on Dems to ‘Grow a Backbone,’ Abolish Filibuster

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) wants Senate Democrats to step to the plate and abolish the filibuster, which would pave the way for near-total Democrat control of Congress.

“Please stop asking us about bipartisanship when this is what the leader of the other party is focused on,” she said on Twitter. “Democrats can’t repeat the mistake of 2009, we must abolish the filibuster & move legislation that helps us deliver progress for the American people. Let’s grow a backbone.”

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McConnell, Schumer Strike Deal on Impeachment Trial Rules

Senate leaders said on Monday that a deal has been agreed upon regarding the framework for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial slated to begin on Tuesday.

“For the information of the Senate, the Republican leader and I, in consultation with both the House managers and former President Trump’s lawyers, have agreed to a bipartisan resolution to govern the structure and timing of the impending trial,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,” the New York Democrat said.

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Mayor of Knoxville Latest Politician to Have Home Vandalized

The Mayor of Knoxville is the latest politician to have her home vandalized, in a trend that has become commonplace since last summer’s Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots. 

“The Knoxville Police Department is investigating after a vandalism report at Mayor Indya Kincannon’s home Sunday night,” according to a Monday report by WBIR. “When officers arrived on the scene, they observed the word ‘Death’ spray-painted in black on the backside of a detached garage at Mayor Kincannon’s house.”

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Ohio Congressman Anthony Gonzalez Discusses Why He Voted to Impeach President Trump

A Buckeye football legend known for “The Catch” against rival Michigan, dropped the ball according to Trump Republicans when he and nine other GOP representatives voted with 222 Democrats in the U.S. House to approve a second impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.

Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH-16) released a statement on Wednesday explaining his support of a Democrat initiated impeachment – a single article alleging incitement of insurrection.

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Commentary: It’s Time for Mitch to Go

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who currently holds what I suppose we now call the Office of the Outgoing Senate Majority Leader, has to go. He’s a man unsuited for the times. The results prove it.

It is McConnell who has been the architect of Republican defeat in the Senate. Heading into the 2016 election, there were 54 Republican senators. After the election there were 52. Then, in 2018, McConnell backed the disastrous candidacy of Martha McSally for an open seat in Arizona. It was McConnell who picked her and crowded out other viable candidates. That year McSally lost by 2.4 percentage points to Kyrsten Sinema while, at the same time, Republican Doug Ducey cruised to a nearly 15-point win as Arizona’s governor. 

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Congress Agrees on Coronavirus Relief Package After Months of Negotiations

Congress agreed on a $900 billion coronavirus relief package Sunday, overcoming several last-minute stalemates over the Federal Reserve’s lending powers and direct cash payments, Senate leaders announced.

“At long last, we have the bipartisan breakthrough the country has needed,” Senate Majority Leader McConnell said Sunday on the Senate floor. “I hope we can do this as promptly as possible.”

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley Calls Loeffler, Perdue and McConnell ‘the Bonnie and Clyde of Corruption’

Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley on Friday compared Republican Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to “the Bonnie and Clyde of corruption.”

Pressley criticized “this GOP-led Senate” on MSNBC host Joy Reid’s “The ReidOut” for sticking with the Trump administration’s policies and criticized them for being distant from challenges Americans face due to COVID-19. Pressley criticized President Donald Trump and said he permitted the economic challenges.

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Commentary: The High Price of Dems’ False Hope

How much money did Democrats squander on hopeless campaigns based on the foolish expectation that Joe Biden would lead a “blue wave” landslide sweeping Republicans out of office at every level? While we must wait for final vote counts to know who won the presidency — this takes time, considering that some Biden voters have been dead for more than 30 years — we can begin to tabulate the cash total Democrats threw away on other campaigns that were inarguably doomed from the outset.

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White House Backs Tailored Measure for Coronavirus Relief as Pelosi Blasts Republicans

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi assailed Republican “disarray” Sunday over a new pandemic relief package as the White House suggested a narrower effort might be necessary, at least for now.

The California Democrat panned the Trump administration’s desire to trim an expiring temporary federal unemployment benefit from $600 weekly to about 70% of pre-pandemic wages. “The reason we had $600 was its simplicity,” she said from the Capitol.

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Congressional Leaders Receive at Least $1 Million in Pension Payouts Paid for by Taxpayers

As the nation struggles with record high unemployment, extended job losses, continued statewide shutdowns, and crippling national debt, a new report reveals that congressional leaders will receive an estimated $1 million each in retirement payouts on top of their lifetime pensions, fully funded by taxpayers.

First published by Forbes, OpenTheBooks.com’s report, “Why Are Taxpayers Providing Public Pensions To Millionaire Members Of Congress?” compares the financial benefits that both top leaders in Congress receive.

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Gov. Whitmer on Bankruptcy Comments: ‘It’s Outrageous for Senator McConnell to Even Suggest That’

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Sunday that bankruptcy is not an option for Michigan in response to comments last week from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Whitmer appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday. Stephanopoulos asked her if default was on the table for Michigan.

“No, and it’s outrageous for Senator McConnell to even suggest that,” Whitmer said. “But that’s what the matter is. Our general fund budget when adjusted for the inflation is the same size it was during – when Richard Nixon was our president. We have been incredibly smart stewards and we have not made some of the investments I think we should have as a state because of this artificially low number that we’ve been working with.”

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Commentary: #NeverTrump GOP Senators Messing with Donald Trump Jr.

by George Rasley   Just when you thought that #NeverTrump Republicans in the Senate might, just might be ready to “move on” as Majority Leader McConnell put it, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (an alleged Republican) has subpoenaed the President’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr to testify on matters related to the Mueller investigation. The Don Jr has already testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in December of 2017, as part of their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. And the Mueller report made no recommendations against him. But Burr, not generally thought of the sharpest knife in the Senate’s GOP drawer, apparently decided to give the Democrats, including his odious Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), one more opportunity to grandstand for the cameras and to set a perjury trap for Don Jr. According to ABC News, a source close to Don Jr. said there was an agreement between the president’s son and the committee that he would only have to come in and testify once as long as he was willing to stay for as long as they’d like, which the source said he did, having stayed with the panel for more than nine hours back…

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Commentary: Democrat Presidential Candidates to Provide Comic Relief This Week as McConnell Presses ‘Green New Deal’ Vote

by CHQ Staff   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled some comic entertainment for the Senate in the form of a debate and vote on the Democrats’ “Green New Deal” plan. The debate and vote are expected to come some time later this week. The “Green New Deal” was authored by freshman Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (NY-14), and longtime global warming whacko Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, it calls for ridding the nation of fossil fuels in the next few decades, among other dramatic environmental and economic changes. To give Americans some idea of the “dramatic environmental and economic changes” Democrats contemplate, the “Green New Deal” rollout included a fact sheet produced by Ocasio-Cortez’s staff that called for eliminating the need for air travel, retrofitting every house and building to green energy standards, and reforming the nation’s agricultural practices to eliminate cows. Practicing up for the coming debate, Socialist Rep. Ocasio-Cortez appeared on a Showtime comedy show last week and said, “We need to take a look at factory farming, and maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Socialist Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s calls to curb methane-producing cows and her proposal to end the alleged environmental…

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Trump Could Appoint Billionaire Coal Exec’s Wife as UN Ambassador

by Chris White   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recommended President Donald Trump choose U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft as his next point person at the United Nations. Craft is the wife of billionaire Joe Craft, a billionaire coal executive who has campaigned against the Obama administration’s crackdown on the coal industry. The Crafts donated more than $2 million to support Trump’s presidency, media reports show. McConnell, whose office confirmed the recommendation to The Daily Caller News Foundation, called Craft a “proven advocate for our national interests,” according to a Thursday McClatchy report. He introduced Craft at her Senate confirmation hearing in July 2017 for her current position. The Senate unanimously voted to confirm her. Craft is facing competition for the spot, namely from high-profile people like U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell and John James, a former Republican senatorial candidate from Michigan. Various media reports suggested the UN ambassadorship is James’s to lose. The process was thrown into disarray Feb. 16 after former State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert dropped out of the running. Trump campaigned in 2016 on reviving a beleaguered coal industry. His administration crafted various proposals to further that mission, including a new policy directing the…

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Mitch McConnell Is Ready To Play Hardball To Get Kavanaugh Confirmed

Mitch McConnell

by Kevin Daley   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told senior Republicans that he will schedule Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote on a date just before the November elections if Democrats demand access to the full scope of records the judge produced in the George W. Bush administration. Democrats are leveraging the access dispute to slow Kavanaugh’s nomination, as it is one of the few mechanisms they have to delay progress on the appointment. Politico reports that McConnell believes scheduling a confirmation vote in immediate proximity to the midterm elections will exacerbate political pressure on embattled Democrats from red states to support Kavanaugh. “To me, it’s in their best interest to have that vote done for a lot of their red-state senators who are facing their voters,” GOP Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. Democrats want access to a massive body of work Kavanaugh generated during his time in the Bush White House. The judge entered the administration as associate White House counsel, then became staff secretary in 2006. In these capacities he advised senior officials on a range of legal issues and managed the president’s paper flow. He left the executive branch following his confirmation to the U.S. Court of…

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Commentary: How Mitch McConnell Will Reveal the Best Candidate in Every Primary

by Jeffrey A. Rendall   “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck” — Dalai Lama XIV It’s not surprising after a loss of epic proportions like the one conservatives and Republicans suffered the other night in Alabama that the post-election blame game is being played with an intensity rarely found in the normally sedate halls of the Washington political castle. Just like with sore loser Cam Newton (of the Carolina Panthers) after his team got “sacked” in the 2016 Super Bowl, there was no shortage of raw emotion and contempt in the reactions of interested conservatives to Judge Roy Moore’s narrow defeat in the usually deep red state. For the eternally Trump-hating #NeverTrump crowd there was jubilation, however, perhaps a release of repressed frustration stored up from so much losing over the past two years. In a post titled “**WHEW**”, bitter and obnoxious (and irrelevant) #NeverTrumper Caleb Howe wrote at Red State, “This is not an article about how bad Roy Moore is. The race is over, we have the future to discuss. But these reminders must be here, because we see everywhere Republicans who choose still not to face the reality of Roy. The truth is that Moore…

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Commentary: Will Obamacare ‘Death Panels’ Make It to the New Year?

The Obamacare “death panels,” the same ones that liberals vehemently denied were a part of the plan, are on life support themselves, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) being the only thing keeping them alive. Conservatives in Congress not only have a chance to end President Donald Trump’s first year with a big win politically, but can also gain policy traction by repealing one of the worst aspects of Obamacare. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, was included in the Obamacare legislation, and consists of a group of 15 unelected bureaucrats who control health care spending and ration health care for those on Medicare (i.e. senior citizens.) You might recognize IPAB as it is more commonly referred to as “the death panels.” President Trump has already signed on to repeal IPAB, as it was part of President Trump’s budget request. The House of Representatives passed their version of IPAB repeal on November 2nd. The bill, introduced by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN-01), a medical doctor, passed with a bipartisan margin of 307 to 111. All of Tennessee’s Republican members of Congress were co-sponsors of the bill. On the passage of IPAB repeal, Congressman Roe stated “I am thrilled the…

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America First Federation Calls on Mitch McConnell to Remove Bob Corker As Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman on National Security Grounds

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — On Tuesday, the America First Federation (AFF) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to remove Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on national security grounds. For good measure, Corker should resign entirely from the United States Senate, the conservative grassroots organization based in Tennessee says. “Senator Corker has decided to become the champion of his own myopic agenda, rather than the national security interests of the United States,” Mark Skoda, founder and chairman of AFF told The Tennessee Star. “Senator Corker’s erratic comments attacking President Trump are giving aid and comfort to our enemies around the world, and Majority Leader McConnell must act now to remove that national security threat from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee immediately,” Skoda said. “The people of Tennessee have rejected his rhetoric. I personally have continued to call into his offices to express my disgust but have been unable to get through to the Capital. Either Bob Corker is extremely popular and receiving congratulatory calls on his obstruction, or he is getting an earful from Tennessee voters who overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016. I suspect that latter rather than the former!” Skoda added “In light…

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Commentary: Richard Viguerie and Other Conservative Leaders Demand New GOP Senate Leadership

by Richard A Viguerie, CHQ Chairman   Today, CHQ Chairman Richard Viguerie joined conservative leaders Ken Cuccinelli II, President, Senate Conservatives Fund, L. Brent Bozell III, Jenny Beth Martin, Co-Founder, Tea Party Patriots, David Bozell, President, For America and Adam Brandon, President, FreedomWorks sending a letter to the Senate Republican leadership making the case that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s failed leadership and betrayals of the conservative – populist voters that brought President Trump to the White House have become an anchor around the neck of Republican Senators in the 2018 Republican primaries that can only be removed by the resignation of McConnell and his entire leadership team. “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s failures and betrayals of the conservative populist voters who brought President Trump to the White House have become an anchor around the neck of Republican Senators in the 2018 Republican primaries,” said conservative direct marketing pioneer Richard A. Viguerie. “Mitch McConnell acts like a Minority Leader, letting Far Left Democrats run the show on Capitol Hill, charged Mr. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com. “As the leader of the alleged conservative party on Capitol Hill he is at best incompetent, and more likely on the other side, leading the opposition…

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Alexander And Corker Both Vote For Failed Obamacare “Skinny Repeal” Amendment

Tennessee Star

Tennessee’s Republican senators both voted early Friday for a health care bill amendment that would have repealed parts of Obamacare, though less dramatically than an amendment defeated earlier this week. The latest amendment, defeated by a 51-49 Senate vote, was dubbed “skinny repeal” and was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The stronger amendment defeated Wednesday was sponsored by his fellow Kentucky Republican senator, Rand Paul. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who voted against Sen. Paul’s amendment because it didn’t have an immediate replacement plan, but who voted to advance Sen. McConnell’s “skinny repeal” said: I voted to take the next step toward what I believed was our best opportunity to repeal and replace Obamacare. The Senate’s failure to do this leaves an urgent problem that I am committed to addressing: Tennessee’s state insurance commissioner says our individual insurance market is very near collapse. Unless Congress acts, many of the 350,000 Tennesseans who buy health insurance in that market—songwriters, farmers, the self-employed—face the real prospect of having zero options to buy insurance in 2018 and 2019. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said in a statement: My strong preference was for Congress to advance legislation I supported earlier this week to repeal Obamacare…

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ACLJ Asking People to Sign Petition to Confirm Neil Gorsuch to Supreme Court

Tennessee Star

  The conservative American Center for Law and Justice is asking people to sign a petition in support of confirming Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Trump’s nominee is facing a Democratic filibuster and Republicans in the Senate are talking about using the so-called “nuclear option” to stop it. That would involve changing Senate rules so that a nominee can be confirmed with a majority vote instead of meeting a 60-vote threshold. This is the first time in history that a nominee to the Supreme Court has faced a partisan filibuster. “We must replace Justice Scalia with a staunch conservative,” the ACLJ says on its website. “The next Supreme Court justice will likely be the determinative vote on the most monumental issues of our time: abortion, religious liberty, national security, and free speech.” The left has launched “a scorched-earth campaign to defeat him,” according to the ACLJ. “They don’t want a proven conservative on the court.” Meanwhile, former President Obama’s group Organizing for Action is asking supporters to sign a petition to stop Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from changing the Senate rules to confirm Gorsuch. “This is a reckless tactic that could ruin the checks and balances…

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