Mitch McConnell Found His Calling: Scrooge of the Year
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch “No, No, a thousand times No!” McConnell (R-Ky.) today won the role of the 2010 Scrooge of the Year. Voters selected McConnell in Jobs with Justice’s (JwJ) 11th annual contest to find the politician, CEO, corporation or politician who has done the most to “scrooge” workers in the spirit of Ebenezer.
It was a crowded field with half a dozen other candidates, but McConnell won handily with 42 percent of the vote. After all, he spent the year leading filibusters against unemployment insurance, job creation, health care reform, Wall Street reform, health care for 9/11 first responders, the DREAM Act, Social Security cost of living adjustments, collective bargaining rights for public safety officers and just about anything that might benefit working families.
Old Ebenezer—before he had the greed and nasty scared out of him by some otherworldly visitors—would be quite proud of McConnell’s victory. Says JwJ Executive Director Sarita Gupta:
We hope that by being elected national Scrooge of the Year, Sen. McConnell will see the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” and understand the dire consequences that his actions will have for generations of Americans. Read the rest of this entry »
CWA: Let the Senate Breathe and Work, End Republican Filibuster Stranglehold
Long gone are the days of U.S. senators standing on the floor of the Senate as hours turned to days while they filibustered legislation they hoped they could talk to death because they didn’t have the votes to kill it outright.
Senate rules no longer require filibustering senators to stay on the floor and speak while all Senate business grinds to a halt, as in the iconic scene in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” where Jimmy Stewart’s character filibusters to exhaustion.
Long-Term Jobless Aid Set for Senate Vote Again, McConnell Vows Filibuster
Here’s some advice for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his Republican colleagues whose obstruction-at-any-price strategy has cost more than 2 million long-term jobless workers their unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.
It’s time to stop holding workers laid off in this recession hostage to Washington politics. It’s time to do what’s right—not for the next election but for the middle class.
Those words from President Obama today came a little more than 24 hours before the U.S. Senate once again tries to break the Republican blockade on extending the long-term UI that expired June 1 because Republicans filibustered against the bill. Pointing to their preference for helping out the wealthy and Wall Street over extending a hand to working families, Obama says “after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit,” the Republicans
who didn’t have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn’t offer relief to the middle class.
Workers to Senate Republicans: Stop Political Games with Jobless, State Aid
Four times this year, Republican senators have blocked bills to keep alive extended unemployment insurance benefits for long-term jobless workers—most recently last week, when they blocked a bill that also contained desperately needed aid for states facing huge budget shortfalls.
Some 1.2 million workers who have been without jobs for six months or more have lost their unemployment benefits since the program expired May 31. Tomorrow, most states will enter a new fiscal year without the emergency financial help that would prevent some 900,000 layoffs.
Short-Term Jobless Aid Breaks Republican Stranglehold, Obama Signs
After a nearly monthlong tantrum by Republican senators that cost hundreds of thousand of workers their unemployment insurance (UI), the U.S. House and Senate last night finally approved legislation to extend UI benefits through June 2 and President Obama immediately signed it.
But with unemployment still remaining at an official 9.7 percent and more than two in every five unemployed workers out of work for more than six months and more than five jobless workers for each job opening, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Congress must pass a yearlong extension
so working families don’t face Republican obstruction and uncertainty every single month.
No Republicans Whined When Bush Made 171 Recess Appointments
Earlier this week, Republicans proved the lesson we all learned in school, “the majority rules,” doesn’t apply to the U.S. Senate. With every single Republican vote and two from defecting Democrats (see below), Republicans sustained a filibuster against Craig Becker’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
After the vote, President Obama cited the filibuster against Becker and Republican holds on more than 60 of his nominees and said he would consider using recess appointment strategy to break the stranglehold the Republican minority has put on the nominees.
When Congress is in recess, as it will be next week, a president may appoint someone to a post without congressional action. The recess appointment lasts through the current session of Congress.
Chao’s Hubby Slows Senate Vote on Solis for Labor Secretary
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has threatened to filibuster any of President Obama’s cabinet and judicial nominees unless they meet a brand new set of conditions that McConnell laid out in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call (subscription required) reported.
These unilaterally developed “standards” from McConnell, who is married to former Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, once again have delayed action on the confirmation of Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, Hilda Solis. The full Senate vote on her nomination, which was scheduled for today, now won’t come until after Congress returns from the Presidents Day recess.
