The Senate, Task Two!

[KeithD]

GOPer Cory Gardner put his party before the country — and now his career is ‘toast’: Conservative



Good thing he's got that sweet government pension plan!

How sweet do you think that plan is? This is a common misunderstanding that floats around on FB frequently. Congressmen get the same retirement plan other federal workers do. His retirement if he leaves government is based on age, years, of service, and salary (at the maximum it wouldn't go beyond 80 percent of salary). Gardner is 46, too young to draw any retirement yet. Overseas danger pay would permit him to start drawing it at 50, but I don't think he qualifies. If he leaves Congress this year, he'll only have 9 years qualifying service for retirement (he first took federal office in 2011). Chances are very good he would have built up better credits toward retirement for those 9 years in the private sector.

Bringing up a cushy retirement for these people is a nonstarter that doesn't take reality into account. If Gardner leaves now, he wouldn't draw from the federal system nearly what he probably could build up in the same time in the private sector (or he wouldn't have had enough salary-pulling clout to win public office to begin with) and it will be several years before he can draw anything at all.

 

[JackLuis]

How sweet do you think that plan is? This is a common misunderstanding that floats around on FB frequently. Congressmen get the same retirement plan other federal workers do. His retirement if he leaves government is based on age, years, of service, and salary (at the maximum it wouldn't go beyond 80 percent of salary). Gardner is 46, too young to draw any retirement yet. Overseas danger pay would permit him to start drawing it at 50, but I don't think he qualifies. If he leaves Congress this year, he'll only have 9 years qualifying service for retirement (he first took federal office in 2011). Chances are very good he would have built up better credits toward retirement for those 9 years in the private sector.

Bringing up a cushy retirement for these people is a nonstarter that doesn't take reality into account. If Gardner leaves now, he wouldn't draw from the federal system nearly what he probably could build up in the same time in the private sector (or he wouldn't have had enough salary-pulling clout to win public office to begin with) and it will be several years before he can draw anything at all.

If he retied from Trump Inc. he'd get bupkus!

 

[KeithD]

If he retied from Trump Inc. he'd get bupkus!

You don't retire from there, do you? You either get fired, walk away in disgust, or have your prison sentence cut your employment short.

 

[JackLuis]

Business groups increasingly worried about death of filibuster

Business groups increasingly worried about death of filibuster
© Greg Nash

Business groups across industries are becoming increasingly nervous about a potential Democratic sweep in November leading to the elimination of the legislative filibuster.

Financial services and oil and gas groups are among those who are worried that progressive policies might be inevitable and bipartisanship on pro-business legislation will be a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, unions and left-leaning groups are growing enthusiastic about the potential for passing bills without the 60-vote procedural hurdle in the Senate.

The American Petroleum Institute, the main trade group for the oil and natural gas industry, warned against moving away from bipartisanship.

“The filibuster has been a part of the Senate for a long time and it has really protected the idea that consensus is needed to move large pieces of legislation,” said Frank Macchiarola, API's senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs. “As both parties have stated over time, what may seem like a good idea when one party is in power may quickly turn and be regretted when the other party is in power.”

Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, cautioned that ending the filibuster could lead to bad policies.

So sad, too bad.

 

[JackLuis]

McConnell seeks to protect vulnerable Republicans with COVID-19 vote

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is hoping to give vulnerable GOP colleagues political cover by voting as soon as next week on a pared-down Republican bill that would provide coronavirus relief to schools, businesses and unemployed Americans.

The GOP leader told fellow Senate Republicans during a conference call Tuesday morning with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that senators in tough races want to vote on a rescue package ASAP, according to a person familiar with the call.

“McConnell wants it. McConnell said today is that every member who’s up [for reelection] who has any hint of vulnerability wants a bill that gets 51 votes,” the source said on Tuesday.

One Senate GOP aide said there is growing support for voting on legislation soon after Labor Day. The bill now being contemplated, however, doesn’t yet appear to have the 51 Republican votes it needs to be hailed a symbolic victory.

“It depends entirely on whether we get to 51,” the aide said about the prospect of McConnell putting a relief bill up for a vote as soon as next week.

Herding cats is easier than herding Senators!

 

[JackLuis]

Emboldened Democrats haggle over 2021 agenda

Senate Democrats emboldened by their electoral prospects are quietly haggling over what the agenda for next year should be if they gain control of Congress and the White House in 2021.

The top priority of Democrats is to pour federal resources into combating the coronavirus and the economic devastation it has caused, lawmakers say.

Private discussions are also taking place over whether to eliminate or reform the legislative filibuster, which sets up a 60-vote threshold to pass most major legislation through the Senate.

“The first fight is going to be about the filibuster in the Senate. That will happen even before they convene,” said Robert Borosage, co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future, a liberal advocacy group. “There’s going to be a lot of organizing out in the grass roots on that — that will start even before the election — to push the senators that say they want not to [reform] it.”

Democrats say they made a mistake by spending months and months of President Obama’s first two years in office focusing mainly on three priorities: fiscal stimulus legislation, the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

Senate action on immigration reform and climate legislation was put on the back burner in 2009 and 2010. When Republicans captured control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections, Democratic hopes of doing anything meaningful on those two issues in the near future evaporated.

Dem's need to realize that they can do more than one thing at a time. I know that seems difficult as the microphones of the press are focused and it's hard to get face time but they are not up there to get press, but to serve the people!

 

[JackLuis]

Top GOP senator: 'It's not beyond' Pelosi to play politics with government funding

No shit!

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday that he would not put it past House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to politicize a deal to avert a government shutdown.

“I will believe it when I see it,” Barrasso said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” in reference to an informal deal between Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to pass a clean bill to fund the government. “It's not beyond Nancy Pelosi to play politics with this.”

“We have been at this point before, where Democrats just want to add more money to the federal debt, with more spending. We need to end government shutdowns permanently,” Barrasso added. “I have introduced legislation with a number of my colleagues, the End Government Shutdown Act, so that there would never be a government shutdown again.”

How about this, Congress only get paid the equivalent of Unemployment until a budget is passed each year. Until the budget is passed they are on short rations! Give them something to motivate them!

 

[JackLuis]

Mitch McConnell Can't Wait To Blame Democrats For Killing Crap Stimulus GOP Might Not Even Support

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to force a vote on a "skinny" stimulus bill this week, mostly because he knows it's unlikely to win any Democratic support, and then Republicans can campaign on how Democrats aren't even "helping" with coronavirus relief. Because presumably Republicans are dumb enough to argue that opposing a near-useless bill is some very ugly partisanship on the part of Democrats.

In an attempt to win over Republicans who think there's been too much help for non-corporate Americans already, McConnell's little bill would only provide about $500 billion in aid, roughly half of what many GOP senators considered extravagant in the last-minute dog's breakfast of a proposal McConnell put out in August. McConnell never even brought that mess to the Senate floor for debate. By scheduling a quick vote on this newest wholly inadequate measure, McConnell hopes he can get 51 votes — enough to say "Republican unity," but well short of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster by Democrats. That will help America a lot, since unlike last month, Donald Trump wouldn't be blaming Dems for Republicans' refusal to agree with each other. He could accuse Dems of refusing to take even a bite of the yummy shit sandwich on offer.

McConnell may not even get all 51 Republican senators on board with his crappy bill, because Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is holding out for a tax credit that would go to pay for private schools, and Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) wants something similar to reward parents who homeschool their kids. Unlike state and local government, gutting public schools is something all Americans benefit from! Other Republicans say they can't support that, so if Cruz and Hawley don't drop their demands, McConnell's skinny puppy wouldn't even have a simple majority, making it hard to put the blame on Democrats. (Donald Trump might still say the bill had a huge 49-2 "majority," since only Republican votes matter.

Moscow Mitch can't herd his cats at all!

 

[JackLuis]

‘I won’t be duped again’: Maine voters can’t wait to send Susan Collins packing

Maine voters have seemingly grown sick of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) expressing concerns over President Donald Trump, only to back him at almost every turn.

The GOP senator has long been known as a moderate and won her fourth term, in 2014, with 68 percent of the vote, but the Trump presidency — and especially her actions during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation — has exposed how flimsy that reputation actually is, reported Slate.

“I actually had this grain of hope that [Collins] would see all this information and hear all of this evidence and weigh all of these facts and come to the logical conclusion,” said Karin Leuthy, who researched Kavanaugh’s case history and helped compile a brief opposing his nomination. “And when she didn’t, I felt really duped, and ashamed that I had been duped. Since then, I am no longer naïve, and I won’t be duped again.”

 

[JackLuis]

North Carolina Can Vote Now To Elect Cal Cunningham And Flip The Senate. Just Vote Once, Please.

On Friday, North Carolina became the first state in the USA to begin sending out absentee ballots for the 2020 general election. That would partly explain why Donald Trump muddied things last week, telling his supporters to vote their absentee ballots and then show up to the polls and vote again on Election Day in November — he "clarified" later he only meant voters should go to the polls to check whether their mailed votes had been recorded (which is also not how it works). Dude is worried, and he has reason to be, with recent polling mostly showing him running behind Joe Biden.

Right below the presidential race on those ballots is another vital contest: the US Senate race between incumbent Republican Thom Tillis, and Democrat Cal Cunningham, who served in the North Carolina state Senate in the early aughts, then volunteered for the Army Reserve and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The race is one of the closest Senate contests this year, with all three major ranking outfits calling it a toss-up. Tillis is in quite a club of up-tossers: Joni Ernst in Iowa, Susan Collins in Maine, Steve Daines in Montana, David Perdue in Georgia, and Cory Gardner in Colorado. Also not-good news for Tillis: he's consistently polled behind Trump with North Carolina voters, which leaves him with a dilemma: he has to prove to Trump voters that he's still with them, but if he gives too many wet kisses to Trump, that could hurt him with centrist voters who are already abandoning the Great Man. Tillis isn't so much walking a tightrope as balancing on a 2X4 through a puddle of shit and deciding how much of the stuff he needs to get on his boots to stay credible with shitkickers — but not so much he'll be refused admission to the Centrist Cafe.

Moscow Mitch is also walking a thin line in Kentucky! Pitch Mitch, is the new black!

 

[JackLuis]

In the middle of a national crisis Mitch McConnell is reviewing every single senate campaign ad

Senate Majority Leader is clearly more occupied with the 2020 campaign than the COVID-19 plague that has killed nearly 200,000 people in the United States.

A new report from CNN’s Manu Raju revealed that McConnell “set aside precious floor time and scheduled votes” to check the campaign ads of Sens. Corey Gardner (R-CO) and Steve Daines (R-MT).

“The episode illustrated McConnell’s intense focus at holding onto his perch atop the Senate and keeping the majority in GOP hands, navigating one of the most tumultuous elections of his long political career while finding a way to take advantage of having a Republican in the White House — even one who has a penchant for putting GOP senators in a jam time and again,” said the report.

Not to mention his own seat is hanging by a thread!

 

[jaF0]

Does that include reviewing his own?

 

[JackLuis]

US Senate Democrats block slim COVID-19 relief bill

All the toads voted with Mitch, but Dem's revolted by his parsimony.

 

[jaF0]

Oooohhh, look at Mitchey Pooh!!!!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/other/FavorabilityRatingsPoliticalLeaders.html

 

[JackLuis]

Democratic insiders set up a 'war room' to quickly kill the filibuster

WASHINGTON — Democratic insiders are assembling a coalition behind the scenes to wage an all-out war on the Senate filibuster in bullish anticipation of sweeping the 2020 election and passing an ambitious progressive agenda.

Veteran party operatives, activist groups and supportive senators are coordinating message and strategy to dial up the pressure to quickly end the 60-vote threshold early next year, fearing that preservation of the rule will enable Republicans to kill Joe Biden’s legislative agenda in its cradle.

They’re consolidating that effort under a coalition called Fix Our Senate run by Eli Zupnick, a former communications director for No. 3 Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Inside the Senate, their biggest ally is Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who has been meeting with colleagues to make his case. He said voters don’t want a repeat of the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, where a series of Democratic priorities were scaled back or thwarted by then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in what he calls the “McConnell veto.”

“Having lived through that horror film, they're not ready to watch it again,” Merkley said. “And so I think our senators are going to be hearing about that.

 

[JackLuis]

Mitch McConnell vows to be ‘firewall’ against progress in Senate as Democrats mull eliminating filibuster

While lawmakers from both parties have used the tactic in the past, Democrats, hoping to flip the Senate, look to block GOP opposition in 2021.

Hoping to allow for the passage of progressive legislation, advocacy groups renewed calls to end the filibuster this week as Republican lawmakers joined Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in warning against the idea.

“This threat to permanently disfigure, to disfigure the Senate, has been the latest growing drumbeat in the modern Democratic Party’s war against our governing institutions,” McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor Monday.

Let's try it, setting Mitch on fire I mean.

 

[jaF0]

I'm all for de-Mitching the Senate.

 

[jaF0]

The de-Mitch situation is not looking promising.

 

[JackLuis]

BUSTED: Four GOP senators caught running ads that lie about preexisting conditions

On Thursday, NBC News dissected the false claims of four Republican senators who are claiming they will protect insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), for example, is running an ad that says “Cory wrote the bill to guarantee coverage to people with pre-existing conditions — forever. No matter what happens to Obamacare.” But, wrote Sahil Kapur, the law he sponsored only prohibits insurers from charging more or denying certain procedures — it would still let insurers deny people coverage altogether, which the ACA does not.

Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) AKA "Toast"

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA)

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT)

But both Perdue and Daines voted to advance the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which would have allowed “non-compliant plans” that exclude pre-existing conditions to compete with “compliant” plans — something experts say would ultimately blow up the health care market and make compliant plans unaffordable.

 

[JackLuis]

Another shoe drops: Divisive Supreme Court fight upends another must-win senate race for a vulnerable Republican

North Carolina is among the swing states that reporters will be keeping an especially close eye on between now and November 3. Polls have been showing a close presidential race in North Carolina, which is also where incumbent GOP Sen. Thom Tillis and his Democratic challenger, Cal Cunningham, are battling for a U.S. Senate seat. And North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race, according to Associated Press reporter Gary D. Robertson, has become even more intense following the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18.

Along with Collins, Arizona’s Martha McSally and Colorado’s Cory Gardner, Tillis is among the incumbent GOP senators who is considered vulnerable in the 2020 election. Polls released in September have found Tillis trailing Cunningham by 5% (CNBC/Change Research and New York Times/Siena), 6% (Civitas/Harper and Emerson), 4% (Reuters/Ipsos and USA Today/Suffolk), 1% (CNN) or 7% (WRAL-TV/Survey USA).

Plus Ms Lindsey's tied in South Carolina.

 

[YDB95]

Tillis has been trailing in the polls for months. Like Collins, it would make sense for him to distance himself from Trump by opposing filling RBG's seat before the election - it might not save him, but being a Trump loyalist definitely won't. But I suspect he, like Graham, is a true believer and willing to sacrifice his seat.

 

[JackLuis]

‘It’s over’: GOP pollster predicts ‘historic’ losses for Republicans in Colorado

Republican pollster David Flaherty is predicting “historic” losses for his party this Election Day and insisting, “There is no reason for either side to put another dime into this state. It’s over. It is undeniable. The train wreck and implosion of the president will bring a historic number of other Republican candidates down, and if you don’t believe that then you have your head in the sand.”

“Cory’s problem is not that he does not have enough money in his account or that there’s not enough spending on that side. Cory’s biggest problem right now is the national political environment, and that has been driven by President Trump’s numbers against Joe Biden,” Wadhams said. “I’m not sure any money can offset that right now.”

RCP says Hickenlooper +9

 

[JackLuis]

Watch ‘super racist’ rant against Kamala Harris by GOP senator at Georgia MAGA rally

Republicans are playing political defense in the once reliably-red state of Georgia.

President Donald Trump is holding a Friday night campaign rally despite the coronavirus pandemic and had Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) warm up the crowd.

Perdue has served alongside Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in the U.S. Senate for 1,382 days, but pretended to not know how to pronounce her name during his speech.

“Bernie and Elizabeth and Kah-mah-la or Kah-ma-la or Kamamboamamla or however you say it,” is the rough transcript CNN’s Ryan Nobles provided on Twitter.

Liz Mair
@LizMair
Your macaca moment for 2020. This is not going to work out well for Perdue...

RCP AVG Perdue +1.0
Almost losing! Some polls have him down by 6!

 

[JackLuis]

Maine RCP Avg Gideon +4.2

North Carolina Cunningham +4.3


Michigan Peters +6.0

Iowa Greenfield +4.8

Minnesota Smith +8.3

Montana Daines +3.3

South Carolina Toss up!

Georga Special Jungle Warnock +7.7

Arizona Kelly +7.8

New Mexico Lujan +9.5

Texas Cornyn +7.6

Alabama Tuberville +12

Not looking good Mitch, and you have a race to win yourself!

 

[jaF0]

Lindsey Graham Warmed To Trump, And Some Republican Voters Feel Left In The Cold

NPR|39 minutes ago

The South Carolina senator used to depend on moderate GOP voters to survive primaries. Now, Graham is in an unexpectedly close race against Democrat Jaime Harrison, who's appealing to the middle.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/18/9244...-some-republican-voters-feel-left-in-the-cold


South Carolina Snapshot
RCP Ranking: Toss Up