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February 7, 2024

Calls grow to get Mitch McConnell out of there

By Monica Showalter

Is it time for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to pack it in?

Sure looks like it, based on the kinds of calls we are seeing for his replacement, following the "dead on arrival" border bill that was his bipartisan 'baby.'

Look at what they are saying from the Senate itself:

 

 

 

 

For the House known for its genteel style of doing politics, that's a lot of Senators from his own party calling on McConnell to get the heck out. It's being done openly, not behind closed doors, and the marker has been laid down in the House where GOP representatives threw their Speaker out for not keeping his word.

According to Fox News:

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz doubled down Tuesday on his call for fresh leadership in the upper chamber's GOP caucus, saying the Senate's crafting of its border bill has been a disaster from its inception.

Cruz told Fox News that by calculating the amount of illegal immigrants permitted per day through the law it portrayed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and other GOP proponents to be comfortable with a large proportionality of President Biden's current border crisis figures.

He's right that this border bill is a disaster, given the way it institutionalizes Joe Biden's open border, and already House leader Rep. Steve Scalise has said that it's not coming up for a vote. For those who care about Israel and Taiwan and Ukraine getting the money they need, this unpassable border bill attached to it is a disaster, too. 

The Bidenites used the border bill to lunge hard for extra money and power for themselves, as well as continuing onward with their "replacement" theory, importing more than a million illegals each year with this border bill.

McConnell went along with it, issued high praise for it, and urged its passage, before making an unexpected U-turn on it in response to angry voter sentiment.

Cruz continued:

"Who won in this battle? His name is Charles Schumer – Chuck Schumer did this. He knew it would fail. He wanted it to fail."

Cruz claimed Democratic leadership will be happy with the bill being torpedoed because it provides political cover to lawmakers facing re-election in November:

"The purpose of this bill was to let every Democrat running for the Senate and running for the House to stand up and say, self-righteously, ‘I wanted to secure the border’… but those mean Republicans wouldn't let me," he argued.

Cruz said that, by contrast, the true illustration of Democrats' position on border security was illegal immigrant Jhoan Boada, who flipped the double-bird after walking free on no bail following an alleged assault on NYPD officers.

Yes indeed, Democrats are "doing something" without doing anything, which marks another defeat for the GOP.

Cruz has also noted that McConnell lost the Senate leadership because of his own funding shenanigans in the last election and seems content to be the House Minority Leader, ensconced in enough power to be happy and untouchable on corruption matters, which is a possibility for someone in power as long as he has been. 

Top it off with McConnell's increasing numbers of "senior moments" to match Joe Biden's, and it's pretty clear this guy should have been put out to pasture a long time ago.

That it took this border bill to bring these matters to a head tells us a lot about the incandescent nature of illegal immigration as a voter issue and the extent of McConnell's failure to drive the hard bargain with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer he should have driven and was in place to drive -- but didn't.

He seems to know something is happening that may drive him from power, given his U-turn on the border bill.

Yet according to Fox, McConnell remains the lackadaisical turtle he always has been whenever calls for this resignation come up.

McConnell ... deadpanned to reporters when asked about Cruz saying "I think it is" time for him to step down: "I think we can all agree that Senator Cruz is not a fan [of mine]."

And, just today, he was forced to say he's unconcerned a second time:

"I’ve had a small group of persistent critics the whole time I’ve been in this job. They had their shot," McConnell told Politico on Wednesday, referring to an attempt to replace him as leader in 2022.

"The reason we’ve been talking about the border is because they wanted to, the persistent critics," he continued. "You can’t pass a bill without dealing with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate."

He'll no doubt be asked a lot about the smoldering fire in his ranks until his leadership self-immolates. Election time, though, is coming and the GOP doesn't want a repeat of 2022. That means getting him the heck out of them. One hopes the old turtle won't know what hit him, but he's too wily-smart for that and will manuever with every trick he has to keep himself ensconced in power.

It's too bad he didn't use such skills on the border bill instead of the GOP. But that's why the calls for his resignation get louder by the day now. He should get out while the getting's good.

Image: Twitter screen shot

 

 

 

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