McConnell: Obama Agenda Must Die

Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com

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In the latest post-victory peroration by Republican honchos, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, outlined on Thursday morning his vision of the way forward for the GOP before a friendly audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation. To save you some time, here’s the five-word synopsis: President Obama’s agenda must die.

McConnell devoted an ample chunk of his remarks at Heritage to reaffirming Republicans’ opposition to all corners of the Democratic Party’s plan, like health insurance reform, financial regulatory reform, and a slew of other initiatives. First, on health care, McConnell forcefully said, “We can and should propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly.” Knowing that any such repeal won’t make it out of the Senate, and even if it did, would be vetoed by Obama, McConnell added that Republicans will “also have to work in the House on denying funds for implementation and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions.”

And when blocking potential legislation isn’t an option, McConnell went on, his party will make sure to stymie any other efforts to advance the Democrats’ agenda through other means. He mentioned blocking card-check proposals, which would allow workers to more easily unionize, from passing via the National Labor Relations Board; preventing the administration’s immigration reform ambitions from being realized through “administrative amnesty” and picking and choosing which immigration laws to enforce (or not); and blocking federal agencies from enacting energy taxes. And, of course, McConnell expressed his intent on blunting the effects of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which he called “horrible” and named, along with the health care bill, as one of the worst bills in his 26-year Senate career.

Most of all, McConnell doubled down on his promise to make Obama a one-term president. As he told the Heritage crowd in his prepared remarks,

Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things. We can hope the President will start listening to the electorate after Tuesday’s election. But we can’t plan on it.

Oddly, during the question-and-answer period, McConnell had a candid moment, seemingly contradicting himself by offering, “I don’t want the president to fail; I want him to change.” Mark it down as a rare slip for a man whose true intentions are abundantly clear.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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