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demmiblue

(36,743 posts)
Mon Feb 18, 2019, 12:38 PM Feb 2019

How Mitch McConnell Enables Trump

He’s not an institutionalist. He’s the man who surrendered the Senate to the president.



Among the casualties of President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build his border wall is the reputation of the majority leader Mitch McConnell as a Senate institutionalist. The evidence of the last few days has confirmed, if there were still any doubt, that he is no such thing.

First, he helped prolong the longest government shutdown in American history by insisting that the Senate would act only with explicit approval from the president. Now Mr. McConnell has fully acquiesced in President Trump’s power grab by supporting an emergency declaration, which he opposed just weeks before, aimed at addressing a crisis that Senate Republicans know does not exist.

This display of obedience from the leader of a supposedly coequal branch of government is shocking only if you ever believed Mr. McConnell was an institutionalist. But his defining characteristic has always been his willingness to do anything and sacrifice any principle to amass power for himself. What separates him from the garden-variety politicians — what makes him a radical — are the lengths he is willing to go. Seeing this with clarity should help us grasp the danger to which he is subjecting the Senate — and, more important, our democracy.

The signs of Mr. McConnell’s malign influence were always there. Before he became a Senate leader, he dedicated himself to opening the floodgates for corporate money to flow into our political system. Mr. McConnell chased the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law all the way to the Supreme Court; the 2003 challenge to the law bears his name. Mr. McConnell lost that one, but his cause prevailed six years later when the Supreme Court overturned restrictions on corporate contributions in Citizens United.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opinion/mitch-mcconnell-trump-emergency.html
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How Mitch McConnell Enables Trump (Original Post) demmiblue Feb 2019 OP
If the Senate Republicans have any balls, they should *expel* Mitch McConnell. no_hypocrisy Feb 2019 #1
+1 2naSalit Feb 2019 #4
Mitch McConnell sold out America to Trump ProudMNDemocrat Feb 2019 #2
K&R 2naSalit Feb 2019 #3
Trump is perfect idiot for Mcconnell's agenda: Panich52 Feb 2019 #5

no_hypocrisy

(45,771 posts)
1. If the Senate Republicans have any balls, they should *expel* Mitch McConnell.
Mon Feb 18, 2019, 12:56 PM
Feb 2019

Under Article I, Section 5, clause 2, of the Constitution, a Member of Congress may be removed from office before the normal expiration of his or her constitutional term by an “expulsion” from the Senate (if a Senator) or from the House of Representatives (if a Representative) upon a formal vote on a resolution agreed.

Article I, Section 5, of the United States Constitution provides that "Each House [of Congress] may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member." Since 1789, the Senate has expelled only fifteen of its entire membership.

ProudMNDemocrat

(16,478 posts)
2. Mitch McConnell sold out America to Trump
Mon Feb 18, 2019, 01:06 PM
Feb 2019

There is no other way to say this.

It will take another Blue Wave to clean up the mess.

Panich52

(5,829 posts)
5. Trump is perfect idiot for Mcconnell's agenda:
Mon Feb 18, 2019, 02:31 PM
Feb 2019

Placing as many anti-democratic & hypocritical "originalists" on the fed bench as he can. He obstructed as many of Obama's nominees as he could, hoping for Repub POTUS in 2016. With trump as his stooge, Heritage Fndn & Federalist Society get to pack the courts with young ideologues and stifle progressive civil rights for more than a generation.

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