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Mitch McConnell Is the New Nancy Pelosi

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In the elections of 2010, grassroots Americans flipped the House from Democratic to Republican based largely on the anger against Nancy Pelosi, who was then the Speaker of the House.

Shortly after the elections, the New York Times asked, “Is Pelosi America’s most unpopular politician?”

It turns out she was, and she was used as a foil for years by grassroots and establishment Republicans in campaigns to crystallize the problems of the nation.

Yet for years, the Democrat Party chose to keep her at the helm of the leadership of the Democratic arm of the House. This year, some Democrats tried to remove her from leadership, and she famously said that she was “worth the trouble.”

The tactic of using Pelosi as a specter of danger during campaigns was extremely successful. Pelosi, in 2013, became the most popular name in congressional leadership, Democrat and Republican alike, but that popularity was largely negative in nature. She became a household name because she was so awful. She was safe in her San Francisco district, but despite that fact, it was her name recognition that destroyed her party’s command.

The nation in 2010 could not remove the president, whom they had finally seen as the destroyer he really was. We tried but could not remove Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with Republican Sharron Angle, due to shenanigans by the establishment wing of the Republican Party. So with the president locked in for at least two more years and the Senate majority leader locked in for 6 more, it was the unremovable Pelosi who took the brunt of the nation’s ire and would for years to come.

Now that the Republicans lead the House, the Senate, and the White House, the lowest-polling leader is Mitch McConnell. Though Pelosi was terribly unfavored, she was not as unfavored in her own party as Mitch McConnell is now.

Just as Pelosi was used during past elections to make the nation think of what kind of future we would have if any of her Democrats remained in office, the nation needs to use Mitch McConnell as the specter Pelosi was and still is to make the nation think of what is standing in the way of the people who want action on the conservative aspects of Trump’s agenda.

Mitch isn’t going anywhere, though many politically inexperienced supporters of the president have suggested he be removed. But though Mitch’s name should be used in the primaries as a weapon, it is his second job that should be the real target.

Recently, the president put McConnell in his Twitter crosshairs, but then relented and made nice when both McConnell’s people and the White House issued statements that they would continue to work together. They intend to work together on agenda items like tax reform, which, if experience is any indication, will be nothing like the promises Trump’s team made during his campaign. They also will work together on infrastructure, which is estimated to add to the deficit significantly. And they both want the debt ceiling raised, as if the nation needs one more boulder on the backs of working Americans. The Senate majority leader’s first job is to continue the legacy of the previous Senate because he’s the epitome of the establishment.

But McConnell’s second job, a job he takes just as seriously as the first, is to elect carbon copies of himself so that they will vote the way he tells them to.

Some Trump supporters are gleeful that Trump was seen before the Phoenix rally with possible challengers to Senator Jeff Flake. But today, those supporters are hoping Sheriff Joe Arpaio will challenge Flake. Since Flake is a McConnell lackey, I suppose the grassroots of Arizona will have to decide who can best oust Flake.

But Trump has put his weight behind Luther Strange of Alabama, another McConnell lackey. So it isn’t wise for Trump supporters to campaign for whoever Trump wants them to, because seemingly Trump himself doesn’t understand that his agenda will never be put into action until the McConnell army is stopped.

If McConnell’s carbon copies win, Trump’s presidency may well end in 2020, with very little done but the continuation of Pelosi’s agenda.

After all the work the people have done to pull the nation away from the fire since 2010, allowing McConnell to continue to elect proxies to call the shots will seriously damage Trump’s agenda, the people’s agenda, and the future of the nation.

Any Republicans running for Senate ought to be asked point-blank if they will go along with McConnell. If they answer yes, they’re done. If they equivocate, they’re done. If they answer no, and provide the right reasons why, they should be carried on the shoulders of the grassroots to victory.

Those who answer improperly will know why: It’s because of Mitch McConnell. (For more from the author of “Mitch McConnell Is the New Nancy Pelosi” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan Surrender Unconditionally

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Once again, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have demonstrated how good they are at surrendering to the unarmed.

Even if Republicans had 80 percent majorities in Congress along with the White House, they would find an excuse for giving Democrats everything they want on the debt ceiling and the upcoming budget bill. The reason is simple: They have no interest in conservative governance. They love giving Democrats what they want, even if they have the power to pass a good bill and even if they’d win a stare-down over a shutdown.

McConnell fights the doctors, not the illness

Earlier this week, McConnell wanted Democrats to understand that he will not let them try to get him to win. Unconditional surrender is the only way forward:

“There is zero chance — no chance — we won’t raise the debt ceiling. No chance. America is not going to default, and we’ll get the job done in conjunction with the secretary of the Treasury.”

There are a couple of important observations about this statement:

1. McConnell is right that there is zero chance of default. As I’ve noted before, our revenue stands at about $3.4 trillion a year, and interest on the debt is $270 billion. We have enough funds to deal with the interest and all the other vital functions of government without issuing any more debt. Unfortunately, this is not what McConnell meant by not defaulting. He is using the other side’s false talking point about default.

2. The only way we will actually default and, in the long run, have trouble paying interest payments, is not if we fail to raise the debt ceiling but if we fail to lower the debt floor. Why is McConnell making the debt ceiling the problem rather than the actual debt?

3. Why would anyone preemptively tell Democrats they will give them anything they want because they are so scared of their obstruction, even when they are in the minority? Putting the repeal of the filibuster aside for a moment, yes, it’s true that Republicans don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. But neither do Democrats! And they don’t have the White House, the House, or a majority vote in the Senate with the leverage to threaten reforms to the filibuster.

The answer to all of these questions is simple: Republicans don’t share our values and goals. Whereas Democrats view brinksmanship as leverage to advance their goals, Republicans view it as the plague to be avoided precisely because they have no interest in our goals. They could have 99 Senate seats, and they would still find an excuse not to do the right thing.

Fear of government shutdown is a phony excuse to perpetuate the status quo

And so it goes with the government funding bill. Republicans have an opportunity to get up in front of the people and declare their priorities in what they plan to fund in the budget and what they plan not to fund. They should fund border security and missile defense while defunding Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, refugee resettlement, and other harmful aspects of government. Americans care more about these issues than a 17 percent shutdown of the bureaucracies.

Yet Republicans, in their insular thinking and their broken political barometer, believe that Americans care about what the D.C. media cares about — a government shutdown — and that Democrats would always win a stare-down. It’s kind of like their fear of the monument issue, where every poll shows super-majority opposition to tearing down monuments, yet Republicans are running scared. It’s why they have no interest in fighting sanctuary cities, fighting for free market health care reform, reclaiming power from the courts, or pushing voter ID.

Take a look at what Paul Ryan said about a government shutdown:

“I don’t think a government shutdown is necessary and I don’t think most people want to see a government shutdown, ourselves included,”

Notice the difference in tone between GOP leaders and Chuck Schumer. Democrats will pound the lectern and declare their beliefs and assert their red lines on policy, even when they are extremely unpopular. Yet Republican leaders sound more like cable commentators opining on the state of play with a government shutdown, refusing to fight for their policies.

That is because they don’t have any policies other than pursuing power as an end to itself.

Which brings us to President Trump

Trump was correct to call out McConnell and Ryan for sabotaging the agenda on the debt ceiling and the budget funding over the border wall, which, by the way, is required by current law. Sadly, we are not going to change this leadership until they are defeated or we start a new party. But Trump can fix the way his administration behaves. Guess who was standing next to McConnell while he made his comments on the debt ceiling? Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Trump’s own Treasury secretary has been running around for months calling for what Trump himself is now repudiating. And he has been pressuring conservatives to capitulate. So rather than his administration uniting behind his supposed agenda, his personnel are actually fueling the very behavior from Ryan and McConnell that Trump has rebuked. This is absurd.

The president needs to double down from yesterday’s tweets and get his administration singing in the same key. He needs to create a list of red lines in the budget, red lines that, if crossed, will trigger his veto pen. He should make some form of free market health care reform the condition for raising the debt ceiling, because health care is the largest driver of the debt. Then he must fully support candidates who are willing to have his back and not support McConnell puppets like Luther Strange.

Overall, the president must remember that Twitter is not a policy outcome, especially when almost all his advisers and cabinet members are rowing in the opposite direction. He should remember who supported his campaign agenda and who opposed it and stop banishing supporters while embracing opponents.

As the party stands now, there is not much Trump can do about congressional leaders. But he can consolidate his own message and behavior by bringing his own administration on board. (For more from the author of “Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan Surrender Unconditionally” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

All He Does Is Fail: Reap What You Sowed, Mitch McConnell

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Now that a group of liberal GOP senators, including Lisa Murkowski, Shelly Moore Capito, and Susan Collins, have made it clear they oppose repeal of Obamacare, some commentators are suggesting that McConnell and party leadership are in an untenable position. They blame conservatives for dissenting from the Right, forcing leadership into a scenario where the liberal flank of the party is also emboldened to dissent from the Left, leaving “mainstream” Republicans sandwiched in between with nothing to pass.

Thus, isn’t Mitch McConnell the victim and Senator Mike Lee the villain?

The short answer is that the problem with the party runs much deeper than the three or so “most liberal” Republicans. The problem is that the majority of the party, leadership members, and “mainstream” elected Republicans agree with the liberal Republicans in principle. They are merely using them as foils.

Why is it that we have so many Republicans who openly support every tenet of Obamacare in the first place? And not just from blue states. From Lisa Murkowski and John McCain to Lindsey Graham, Shelly Moore Capito, Lamar Alexander, and Bill Cassidy, the GOP conference is full of RINOs.

The answer is simple. GOP bosses have no problem with these people and will continue to support them. They stand for nothing. They have failed to offer a free market vision for health care (or anything else for that matter) and don’t disagree with any of the principles from the left flank of the caucus. These senators who are more openly liberal know that the GOP platform is a joke and a free-for-all. They know that leadership will continue to help them get elected, help new liberal Republicans win primaries, and tolerate endless dissent.

The dissents from Mike Lee and Rand Paul are not equivalent to the dissents from Capito and Murkwoski. While the former are upholding the GOP promise and the GOP platform, and even compromising on it, the other side is not willing to adopt a single tenet of what they signed onto during the election. But unlike conservatives who are raked over the coals and marginalized for believing in what the party claims it stands for, these liberal Republicans get off scot-free.

It’s precisely because we didn’t have a president and party leadership speaking with one voice on GOP free market principles that the left flank of the party felt emboldened to promote Obamacare. They understand that party leaders don’t care.

A functioning party that actually stands for something will always have slightly differing shades of its ideology and some differing opinions, but everyone is united behind fundamental principles. Just look at the Democrat Party. They never have problems on legacy issues in a significant way from their “right flank,” because the core center of the party leadership actually believes in their platform.

Think about it: when was the last time you found a Democrat undermining her party’s agenda in any meaningful way, much less on a core legacy item? Where are the Democrats supporting traditional marriage or even dissenting from the party line on the most extreme ideas of promoting sex-change operations in the military? Not a single one Democrat voted against funding sex-change operations in the military.

When was the last time a Democrat supported free markets?

When was the last time a Democrat supported private retirement accounts?

When was the last time a Democrat supported strong borders and opposed illegal immigration?

Even the Democrats from the reddest of red states are fully in cahoots with their party leadership. They merely posture to the Right on a few issues, such as guns, but will never thwart their party in a meaningful way. In fact, the only action we’ve seen from “pro-gun” Joe Manchin was his effort to further the gun-control agenda. It’s all a sham. He has never dissented from the pro-abortion agenda or the transgender agenda — ever! His work in the Senate is completely divorced from his campaign ads.

Yet we have Republicans even from red states who can’t uphold the most basic tenets of the GOP platform. Whereas Democrats lie to the voters in pursuit of their party’s platform, Republicans lie to the voters in pursuit of the other party’s platform.

If the mainstream elected Republicans actually believed in their party’s platform with as much conviction as mainstream Democrats believe in thiers, there would be no place for those who are completely out of touch with those values.

But it’s worse than the callous attitude toward enforcing the platform. Republicans like Mitch McConnell have ensured that these very liberal Republicans continue to win primaries. After Lisa Murkowski ran as an Independent in 2010, and knowing her liberal views on every single issue under the sun, including health care and abortion, why did they help her win over Joe Miller in 2016? They should have downright endorsed Joe Miller if they really believed in their platform. After all, Alaska is a red state.

Furthermore, why do we have a pro-abortion liberal like Capito in a solidly pro-life state like West Virginia? This is because party bosses make it clear that candidates like Mike Lee have no place in the party, even in red states, and that no matter how liberal one of the establishment candidates is, they will support that candidate until the bitter end. At this very juncture, the entire party infrastructure is busy promoting similar candidates in the 2018 primaries — candidates who couldn’t care less about the party platform.

As such, why should conservatives sell out their principles and take ownership of an Obamacare bailout bill just to placate members who were only elected thanks to the work of McConnell and Company? Let him reap what he sows.

The problem with the Republican Party is not that there are a few fringe Republicans on the Left who like to vote with the Democrats. It’s that, unlike with Democrats, there are only a few “fringe” Republicans who actually believe in the platform of the party. (For more from the author of “All He Does Is Fail: Reap What You Sowed, Mitch McConnell” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Mitch McConnell’s Bucket of Suck

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It’s worse than most people think. If the Freedom Caucus hadn’t stood in the way of triggering the three-bucket health care solution rightly tagged as “RINOcare,” and it had passed, we’d be on Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) “long game” train that would never reach its destination.

Many people have talked about the “third bucket” of the Republican’s health care plan as one that was particularly enticing. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) explained on “Face the Nation” that the third bucket was the “sucker’s bucket.” He said that everything in the third bucket was put there because there would be a need to have eight Democrats to vote for it, according to the way the Senate is run. Cruz said that phase three was never going to happen because, “You can’t get eight Senate Democrats to agree on saying good morning.”

Jim Geraghty at National Review also questioned phase three, noting that it would be quite a difficult road to get eight Democratic Senate seats to flip in 2018. He wrote, “Nuking the filibuster appears to be off the table, at least for now. So what’s the roadmap to get to 60 votes? And if there is no viable path to get 60 votes … how do the ideas in ‘Phase Three’ ever get enacted?”

So, why would “nuking the filibuster” be off the table in the first place?

I wrote a piece on Mitch McConnell’s recent memoir, “The Long Game” a while back, and I noted that the book is peppered from beginning to end of McConnell’s love for winning elections. It’s what keeps him going, and I recall him saying something like, “The best way to become a great senator, is to remain one.” He is very proud of the elections he, “wasn’t supposed to” win. But he also said plenty about how he believes in the Senate as an institution which must survive for our own good. It is because he believes in the institution over everything else and that he loves winning elections that we had a phase three.

The way the AHCA was set up, looking back, has McConnell’s fingerprints all over it for two reasons. One, the sucker’s bucket, as Cruz aptly termed it, promised all the goodies conservatives wanted yet took eight Democrats to enact. “Impossible!” said nearly everyone. But if you look at it from McConnell’s point of view, it makes sense. He will not change Senate procedure in his “precious institution” where he has sat for 32 years.

The second reason this reeks of McConnell-esque machinations is because a phase that can be put off for campaign purposes — as in spending all of 2018 campaigning on replacement that would take a filibuster-proof Senate when there will be 23 Democrats coming up for reelection — is a chance, as several sources have said, that Republicans can gain seats.

I’m sure we all remember leadership’s mantras in 2011, that they were only half of a third in 2013, that they needed the Senate in 2015, that they needed the White House in 2016, and now, apparently, Mitch McConnell is saying because of Senate rules he needs a filibuster proof majority in the elections of 2018. In every one of these arguments, the leadership continued to claim they would repeal, “if,” the people continued to elect more and more Republicans.

This is precisely why he recently said the following:

It’s pretty obvious we were not able in the House to pass a replacement … Our Democratic friends ought to be pretty happy about that because we have the existing law in place and I think we’re just going to have to see how that works out … We believe it will not work out well, but we’ll see. They have an opportunity now to have the status quo go forward, regretfully.

In other words, McConnell was able to cast blame on the House for a promise in the Senate that he had no intention of honoring UNLESS we elected a filibuster-proof Senate. Even then the law would still not be repealed.

It’s my guess McConnell is probably a little upset that all eyes aren’t on him in the Senate, which they would have been had the House passed RINOcare. He would have been able to command attention for the next two years, promising once again to do what he said he would do — once the voters gave him even more of a majority of course.

In reality, he’s the keeper of his precious institution that under his management is guaranteeing Obamacare will remain. (For more from the author of “Mitch McConnell’s Bucket of Suck” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Mitch McConnell FINALLY Served a Purpose for GOP/Conservatives

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First, let me this out of the way straight away — this is not a joke.

I swear it.

I have to begin with that caveat because those of you who regularly listen to my show, or read my column, would likely believe I was engaging in grade A trolling had I not. Or you might suspect I’ve gone mad as a hatter. For what I’m about to say undeniably goes against my default setting where the senior senator from the commonwealth of Kentucky is concerned.

Yes, that would be Mitch McConnell R-Ky. (F, 40%). Or “Ditch” as I once coined him long ago for being the chief playwright of what became known as “failure theater.” The man whose relationship with conservatives has been, well, complicated, to be kind. But today is no time to dwell on the past. Today is a time for giving credit where credit is due.

So here it is, Mitch McConnell, and again, I mean this in all seriousness: thank you. (Editor’s note: we disagree. McConnell is a snake and, although he’ll occasionally throw us a bone, is absolutely unredeemable. You can bet your last dollar that anything McConnell does that is “conservative” either was already going to happen or helps advance his own crony-capitalist interests; he is despicable, largely responsible for the disastrous state our nation is in)

It was you who stood in the breach after President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia following his death last February. That left nearly a year before a new president would be sworn in. In fact, Garland’s name ultimately was entered into nomination for more than twice as long as any Supreme Court nominee that came before him.

“Obstruction,” the Democrats cried. And they continue to do so now as they prepare to torpedo President Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to replace Scalia.

But when the real obstruction has been decades upon decades of judicial usurpations of the legislative process, McConnell sat down at the high stakes poker table and played a stone-cold hand. He bet he would get just the jackpot he needed when that river card was flipped. A “Trump card” if you will.

So now here we are, with a chance to at least hold the line on the Supreme Court, and perhaps even set the stage for a return to something resembling the jurisprudence of our Founding Fathers. And now if you’re one of those applauding the Gorsuch appointment, you owe McConnell a doth of the cap as well.

That’s not to say McConnell and conservatives are suddenly bosom buddies. There’s still a lot of water under that bridge. Still, the importance of what the Senate Majority Leader did here cannot be understated, and had he not done it the possibility exists the ideological balance of the nation’s highest court could’ve been generationally impacted.

Ronald Reagan once famously had a plaque with the following words inscribed on it in the oval office: “It’s amazing what you can do when you don’t care who gets the credit for it.” In that spirit, if Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (F, 30%) can stand shoulder-to-shoulder on MSNBC when they share common ground, we can thank McConnell for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us here.

This time DC did listen to us, and we should acknowledge when that happens at least as much as we do when it doesn’t. Here’s to hoping this is the start of a trend.

Thanks again, Mitch. (For more from the author of “Mitch McConnell FINALLY Served a Purpose for GOP/Conservatives” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

McConnell Is Going to Hate This Latest Trump Hire

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Donald Trump just put a lump of coal in Mitch McConnell’s, R-Kentucky (F, 40%) Christmas stocking.

McConnell and Trump have been playing nice since the election. Will Trump’s selection of Jason Miller as White House director of communications fray that relationship? Miller was a certified thorn in McConnell’s side and helped to run the unsuccessful GOP primary campaign of then businessman Matt Bevin against McConnell in 2014. Ouch.

It’s not just Bevin that Miller has been involved with. He was also a senior advisor to the presidential campaign of Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%), McConnell’s least favorite senator. According to his biography on the Jamestown Associates website, Miller “served as Senior Communications Advisor on the presidential campaign of Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, overseeing the Communications Department and creating more than two dozen television and radio ads as part of the campaign’s advertising team.”

Miller has also worked with other anti-establishment conservatives including South Carolina representative Mark Sanford, R-S.C. (A, 90%).

Miller, and Jamestown’s work against Establishment Republican incumbents, got them blacklisted by both McConnell, and the House Republican’s campaign arm. To say McConnell held a grudge is an understatement. Here is how the Daily Caller described the blacklisting.

The damage done to the Republican ad firm Jamestown Associates as punishment for working for the controversial outside group Senate Conservatives Fund could be even more substantial than first thought. It was originally reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee would blacklist the company. But that might be just the beginning.

Aside from the NRSC, Jamestown has, in the past, been awarded contracts to create independent expenditure ads for groups like the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Chamber of Commerce.

McConnell’s grudge against Jamestown is so complete that he even targeted Ben Sasse, R-Kansas (A, 94%), during the now senator’s primary in 2014. Why? Because he had the temerity to use Jamestown associates. Here’s how Erick Erickson described it.

Ben Sasse, the conservative candidate in Nebraska on the most recent cover of National Review and who has the backing of the Senate Conservatives Fund, RedState, and others, suddenly finds Mitch McConnell and the NRSC holding fundraisers for his opponent. Sasse, it should be noted, is widely considered a brainiac opponent of Obamacare and healthcare policy expert.And just yesterday, the National Republican Congressional Committee blackballed Jamestown Associates from helping elect Republicans. The NRCC is joining the NRSC in attacking Jamestown. Why? Because Jamestown Associates has been working with conservative candidates the House and Senate GOP leadership opposes.

It is fair to say that Miller, and the company he is a partner in, are some of Mitch McConnell’s least favorite people. In fact that may be an understatement.

With Trump’s choice of Miller to run his White House communications team, he has not only chosen someone unafraid to fight against the “Washington Cartel,” but also defied McConnell’s blacklist. For conservatives, this is a very welcome Christmas present. (For more from the author of “McConnell Is Going to Hate This Latest Trump Hire” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

McConnell to Lead Senate GOP, Schumer New Democratic Leader

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Senate Republicans re-elected Mitch McConnell on Wednesday to be majority leader next year while Democrats picked Chuck Schumer to lead them, setting the chief actors as the chamber prepares for an agenda that will be dominated by Donald Trump and the GOP.

McConnell, 74, is a discreet but deadly master of the Senate’s legislative chess game. His role will be to steer GOP bills to the desk of a president whose name he barely spoke during a tumultuous campaign in which many Republicans viewed Trump and his incendiary comments on Muslims, veterans and others as political poison.

“It’s time to accept the results of the election, to lower the tone and to see what we can do together to make progress for the country,” McConnell, from Kentucky, told reporters Wednesday.

As Senate minority leader, Schumer will assume his weakened party’s most powerful remaining post as it struggles to define its role in a Republican-dominated government. (Read more from “McConnell to Lead Senate GOP, Schumer New Democratic Leader” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

In New Spending Bill, McConnell Sides With Liberals, Ignores Conservative Priorities

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After voting to proceed to a bill that didn’t exist earlier this week, the Senate has finally produced text of the continuing resolution, a short-term government spending bill.

The bill, written behind closed doors by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, was brought to the floor late Thursday afternoon, and for the majority of Senate Republicans, represented their first opportunity to see the text. According to McConnell, senators will have four days (two of them on a weekend) to review the bill before having to cast their votes next week.

As far as conservative priorities go, the bill is a failure. Among its many obvious flaws, it funds the government through Dec. 9—setting up a lame-duck session of Congress.

In the lame-duck session, which occurs after the election but before new lawmakers are sworn in, unaccountable legislators are likely to pass a bevy of backroom deals, to the detriment of representative democracy (and, we can assume, to the wallets of the taxpayer).

Even though it only funds the government for a scant 69 days, the McConnell continuing resolution manages to do it at the bloated Boehner-Obama spending levels that were jammed down the throats of conservatives in 2015.

In doing so, the continuing resolution sets up yet another spending cliff that will spawn a false panic in the lame-duck session, and lay the groundwork for more “must-pass” terrible deals. In other words, in December, lawmakers will once more have to pass yet another spending bill in order to ensure the government continues normal operations.

Worse still, this continuing resolution fundamentally grows government. The bill includes $500 million for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address flooding in Louisiana—despite the $12 billion the agency already has.

Furthermore, it grants President Barack Obama vast new hiring authority, so he can bring in a bunch of bureaucrats to burrow into federal agencies right before he leaves office.

The most troubling elements of the McConnell continuing resolution, however, come down to policy. Conservative priorities are abandoned—or outright ignored—while liberal policies are given priority.

Conservatives in the House and Senate have long been focused on delaying the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) transition—the deal that will pass governance of the internet from the United States to a “multi-stakeholder community” that includes authoritarian countries like Russia, China, and Iran.

Despite a multitude of congressional hearings and engagement from key Senate Republicans, McConnell chose not to address the ICANN transition—and in doing so, will allow it to proceed as scheduled on Oct. 1.

Perhaps the biggest slap in the face to conservatives, however, is the bill’s treatment of emergency funding to address the Zika virus. Whether or not Planned Parenthood—America’s largest abortion provider—would receive access to the Zika funding was a key sticking point in negotiations of the continuing resolution, with Democrats insisting that Planned Parenthood be able to access Zika funding, and conservatives in the House and Senate demanding that they be barred from doing so.

In his final bill, McConnell chose to side with the Democrats over conservatives. Not only does this bill lack a prohibition on funding for Planned Parenthood, it actually creates the opportunity for Planned Parenthood to get a raise.

Yes, you read that right. Under the funding bill written by the Senate majority leader, Planned Parenthood can get a raise.

How? According to analysis by The Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino, Planned Parenthood already receives over $500 million in taxpayer money every year (legally, this money must be spent on family planning services other than abortion).

In the McConnell continuing resolution, Planned Parenthood gets its normal half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding. However, because the continuing resolution also gives it access to Zika funds, Planned Parenthood can receive even more money.

This state of play was confirmed earlier this week in press reports of Democrats publicly gloating over their win. With McConnell’s office silent on the state of negotiations, the Democrat leader in waiting, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Congressional Quarterly that the “Zika issue has been resolved” because GOP negotiators were “dropping all their riders.”

This short-term continuing resolution contains nothing for conservatives to be happy about. It hands Democrats victories while ignoring conservative priorities and growing government.

The fact that Senate leadership would put this type of bill forward now—before they have to face the voters in November—should raise serious concerns about what they intend to try and pass in the lame-duck session, when even fewer people will be watching. (For more from the author of “In New Spending Bill, McConnell Sides With Liberals, Ignores Conservative Priorities” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

McConnell’s Feckless ‘Leadership’ May Cost the GOP the Senate

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This week, Senate Republicans are preparing to wrap up their work and head back on the campaign trail — a full two weeks before they were scheduled to leave. Since returning from a seven-week August recess, the Senate has put in a grand total of three weeks of work. Now, Republicans plan to bust out of Washington to protect their Senate majority.

In their wake, they leave a year of pandering to K Street, funding Planned Parenthood, and largely failing to fight on any conservative priority. But this is primarily the fault of one man: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 42%).

As conservatives, we are repeatedly bashed over the head with the idea that we must sit down and shut up to “protect the Senate majority.” But what has this majority — led by Senator McConnell — won for conservatives?

The answer is a big, fat nothing.

McConnell’s legacy of leadership for conservatives is marked by combativeness, deception, and brute force — all in the name of “party unity.”

Just consider the major accomplishments of this Republican Senate. McConnell crows about passing the Keystone pipeline, a major transportation bill stuffed with earmarks, and a tax bill with blatant handouts to special interests. How about that $500 billion Medicare bailout? None of these are victories for conservatives. Not even close.

What happened to their priorities?

Well, let’s see. McConnell refused to fight President Obama’s executive amnesty. McConnell caved on conservative calls to end the Export-Import Bank. He negotiated away the biggest conservative spending accomplishment in decades, set up Republican amendment votes so that they would fail, considered ending the Senate filibuster, and, even worse, excoriated his own members for trying to have meaningful votes to repeal Obamacare.

Just last week, McConnell flat out ignored pleas from conservatives in the House and Senate to introduce a spending bill that will keep the government running into early 2017 — thereby avoiding passing significant and controversial legislation during the most unaccountable period of government.

As if to stick it to conservatives on the way out the door, McConnell dropped the fight to prevent federal Zika funds from going to Planned Parenthood clinics — a position that even Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (F, 53%) has declared he cannot support.

Aside from barely standing for anything remotely Republican, it is clear that Mitch McConnell doesn’t care about conservatives.

Over the last year, conservatives have been told their ideas are too divisive and too controversial to be given any air time — much less an opportunity for a vote. All this, despite the fact that in the Senate every Senator has equal authority, and thus equal opportunity, to have their concerns heard. Instead of focusing on representing all factions of his party, McConnell has made it his special mission to shut down conservatives, relegating them to the back bench of “unfavorables” where they (not to mention their constituents) linger in obscurity.

When pressed, McConnell’s office stammers defensively, “but… but… we have a Democratic president, we could never pass their ideas! We have a Democratic minority that will block us!”

Somehow, the threat of disagreement from Democrats has become an acceptable excuse for not fighting at all.

So as the Senate hightails it out of town to “protect the majority” — pushing all their major work into the lame duck — it seems worth asking: what’s the point of having a majority if it refuses to fight for its principles?

It seems that conservatives aren’t the only ones asking this question. In a recent national poll conducted by Morning Consult, McConnell ranked dead last, with over half of the respondents responding negatively. That poll seems coincide with his Conservative Review score, a pathetic 42%.

It seems that it’s not just conservatives who are upset with McConnell’s failure to lead the Senate toward anything resembling a transparent process that draws a principled line in the sand against his Democratic counterpart. Voters are tired of not being able to distinguish between the parties. They’re tired of having politicians promise to repeal Obamacare root and branch, and then try to back out of it because it’s too hard.

McConnell’s fecklessness may indeed cost the Republicans its Senate majority. Sadly, the question must be percolating on the minds of most conservatives: What the point of having a Senate majority if it’s subject to the whims of only one man? A man who is nothing more than an aristocrat who silences conservatives within his own party; or too inept in his own obligations to fight on principle?

While the outcome of this election is uncertain, one thing is clear. Conservatives deserve far better than Mitch McConnell. (For more from the author of “McConnell’s Feckless ‘Leadership’ May Cost the GOP the Senate” HERE)

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McConnell’s Double Budget Betrayal Begins

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The annual budget is the most powerful tool given over to the party that controls Congress. It is a tool that can be used to express the priorities and worldview of that party, and can be used as a platform to present their case for a White House win.

In a sane world, Republicans would have immediately presented their budget this week, funded every agency and department (even the bad ones and functions like Obamacare that will have to wait for future leverage points), albeit prohibited funding for some of the most damaging and imminent problems facing this country. Obama’s refugee increase, the internet giveaway, and payments to Iran, to name a few. The bill would include emergency funding for Zika, but stipulate that leftover funds from Ebola must be used first and that no funding can go to Planned Parenthood.

Republicans could have spoken with moral clarity to the American people that Democrats, who refused to pass a budget when they controlled Congress, better not shut down the government in order to fund Iran, turn America into Europe’s security nightmare, and hand off America’s greatest invention to a tribunal influenced by Russia and China. If Democrats want to shut down the government and not fight Zika because they want funding for a private entity under criminal investigation for harvesting baby parts, let them have at it.

When you actually believe in something, especially regarding popular issues that resonate with voters, it’s not too hard to message it. But alas, these GOP leaders believe in nothing beyond pursuing the path to least resistance. Democrats embrace confrontation as a means of promoting their agenda, even when it’s unpopular; Republicans abjure confrontation even when it is politically advantageous for them.

In comes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 42%). Instead of throwing a touchdown, he actually plans to toss an interception and use the GOP-control of the Senate to undermine conservatives in the House. Yes, this is another example of why it was actually worse to win back the Senate with RINOs in 2014 than to have Democrats control that body. McConnell is preemptively undermining House conservatives by openly calling for Harry Reid’s plan of a continuing resolution (CR) that fully funds Obama’s agenda with no significant expression of American priorities, much less conservative ones.

There are also late reports indicating that McConnell plans to capitulate and drop the prohibition on funding Planned Parenthood in the Zika bill, as suggested as suggested by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (C, 77%) and Mark Kirk, R-Ill. (F 17%) earlier this week. This runs counter to the House bill passed earlier this year. It’s essentially a fight with Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, and Obama on one side and House conservatives on another side. House leadership is pretending to fight for conservatives while allowing McConnell to orchestrate the sabotage for them.

What’s worse, McConnell is also siding with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. (D, 2%) against conservatives by demanding that the budget bill expire in December, during the lame duck session, instead of some time in 2017. If Republicans plan to surrender and not go for a touchdown by harnessing the budget leverage to force good policy, at the very least they should be prevented from tossing an interception and tacking on bad policy to the “must-pass” budget bill. By having this iteration of the CR expire during the lame duck session, history has shown that retiring members act out as political suicide bombers and use the must-pass vehicle as a conduit for extraneous liberal bills. All sorts of bad bill could potential hitch a ride on a budget bill in December.

This is why I believe there is no utility to conservatives rewarding liberal Republican senators by voting for them in November. It’s one thing to vote for a presidential candidate or a GOP House, even when the candidates in the general elections aren’t conservative because there is more at stake in preventing a bad Democrat agenda. But once Republicans have control of the House, there is no utility to having a “Republican” Senate with the current cast of characters. And in fact, they make matters worse by lending the GOP name to Democrat priorities and marginalizing House Republicans. The only difference they would make if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency (if Trump wins, on the other hand, it’s hard to see Republicans losing the Senate) is the ability to block judicial nominees. But if you think these people would block any Hillary nominee after having won the presidency you have not been paying attention.

Despite McConnell’s betrayal, the House Freedom Caucus must hold their ground and demand, at the very least, that A) any budget bill not expire during the lame duck session and B) Obama’s refugee program must be defunded (no gimmick provisions like the one the House passed last year). If they don’t stand firm and do so quickly, McConnell will have the ball in the wrong end-zone within days. (For more from the author of “McConnell’s Double Budget Betrayal Begins” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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