Mitch McConnell has to be finished as the caucus leader for the Republicans in the Senate. Now. He has to resign, and if he won’t, then that caucus needs to get together and force him out.
Now. Not next week, not next month, not after this election cycle. Now.
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Senate Republicans will block a procedural motion this week to start debating a bipartisan border security deal following intense opposition to the legislation from the House GOP and former President Donald Trump.
The bill includes more than $60 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, and the move leaves funding for the war-torn nation in limbo, according to The Hill.
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Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott is leading a bloc of 19 other Senate Republicans in an effort to stonewall all legislation unrelated to government funding until Congress approves all of its appropriations bills.
The lawmakers warned Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of their intentions amid an intense congressional battle over spending that saw House conservatives take the unprecedented step of ousting Speaker Kevin McCarthy. At issue are 12 annual spending bills, which Congress must approve by Nov. 17 following the passage of a continuing resolution this weekend to avert a government shutdown.
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Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) and Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker (R) led 45 of their Republican colleagues in introducing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, a measure that would permanently prohibit federal funding for abortion. Johnson and Wicker introduced the legislation Wednesday, a measure that would establish a “permanent prohibition on federal funding for abortion, replacing the current restrictions with a single, government-wide standard,” said a press release from Johnson’s office.
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Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) are leading their Republican colleagues in an effort to demand Senate Republican leaders insist on an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would end the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
In a letter Wednesday to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senators John Thune (R-SD), John Barrasso (RWY), and Roy Blunt (R-MO), Johnson and Paul joined 11 of their Senate GOP colleagues in voicing their opposition to forging ahead with the NDAA for the Fiscal Year 2023 without a Senate vote on an amendment that would ban discharges from the armed services due to failure to take the COVID shot.
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Senate Republicans re-elected Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as leader 37-10 on Wednesday.
South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune was also re-elected as Senate Republican whip.
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Five Republican senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee are demanding answers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about royalty payments made by third parties to NIH employees.
In a letter Wednesday to NIH Director Lawrence Tabak, the senators noted that “the agency has taken no action to disclose such payments to the public at large.”
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The day before FBI Director Christopher Wray explained to a Senate appropriations subcommittee why his department deserves a $527.8 million raise in 2023, his agents were credited with foiling an ISIS-linked plot to assassinate George W. Bush. An Iraqi national was arrested on May 25 and charged with attempting to smuggle four other Iraqis into the United States then “murder” the former president in retaliation for the war in Iraq. (I will address the sketchiness of this story in a separate column.)
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Forty-six Senate Republicans demanded Wednesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland respect the independence of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the FBI’s Russia probe of the Trump campaign in the 2016 election.
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