Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked two election security measures on Thursday, arguing Democrats are trying to give themselves a “political benefit.”
The move comes a day after former special counsel Robert Mueller warned about election meddling in 2020, saying Russia was laying the groundwork to interfere in the 2020 election “as we sit here.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) had tried to get consent Thursday to pass a House bill that requires the use of paper ballots and includes funding for the Election Assistance Commission. It passed the House 225-184 with one Republican voting for it.
But McConnell objected, saying Schumer was trying to pass “partisan legislation.”
“Clearly this request is not a serious effort to make a law. Clearly something so partisan that it only received one single solitary Republican vote in the House is not going to travel through the Senate by unanimous consent,” McConnell said.
Under the Senate’s rules any one senator can request consent to pass a bill, but any one senator can object.
Schumer argued that if McConnell didn’t like that bill “let’s put another bill on the floor and debate it.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) also asked for consent to pass legislation that would require candidates, campaign officials and their family members to notify the FBI of assistance offers from foreign governments.
McConnell also objected to that bill.
In his testimony before Congress on Wednesday, Mueller warned about continued Russian interference in U.S. elections.
“We are expecting them to do it again during the next campaign,” Mueller said.
Schumer cited Mueller’s testimony on Thursday as a prime example that more legislation is needed from Congress.
“It was important for all us to hear straight from Robert Mueller’s mouth that the threat from Russia and other foreign adversaries seeking to meddle in our elections is very real and still very much ongoing,” Schumer said.
“Mueller’s testimony was a clarion call for election security. Mueller’s testimony should be a wake-up call to every American, Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, that the integrity of our elections is at stake. … This is all about the future of this country,” he added.
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Those
are the elements that are governing this country and until elected officials –
like Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and First District Rep. Louie Gohmert
– start working to govern for the entire country instead of an off-balanced
off-shoot of so-called conservatives, the cauldron of corruption and chaos the
U.S. is immersed tight this minute in will continue.
“With malice toward none,
with charity for all…let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind
this nation’s wounds.”
Those
words, written on a sheet of paper while riding in a steam-powered locomotive
by Republican President Abraham Lincoln, were uttered one month before the end
of the Civil War.
Today,
this nation is in another civil war that, once again, pits father against son,
brother against brother; it is tearing families, churches, purveyors of all
religions, institutions of learning and neighbors apart. This modern war is an
internal struggle among peers, pitting mindsets and single-issue policies and
beliefs against one another with no regard for the position of agreeing to
disagree or “live and let live.”
The
war of today is a tragedy of the upmost importance to the future of the people,
the country and of democracy. This war is not about slavery or states rights or
populist ideas vs. established traditions; is about the survival of the United
States of America, once the most powerful and benevolent on the planet, but no
longer.
Followers
of and believers in Donald J. Trump fall into four main categories: Citizens
who want to end abortion by any means; those who believe the hype that Trump
the Businessman knows how to run a country better than a politician; believers
that Hillary Clinton and left-wing “fruit-loops” are to be destroyed, and; haters…those that hate what they cannot
understand, what they fear, hate the position they find themselves in the totem
pole rankings of life or what they believe is an abomination according to Old
Testament scripture.
Most
citizens with common sense can understand the primary conservative “abortion” argument: It is a ideological
concept that goes to the heart and soul of each individual. It is totally valid
to feel a kinship with the unborn…any unborn, just as it is valid to believe
that politicians (mostly white, old men) should not be implementing laws that govern what occurs
between a woman and her doctor.
Those
that believe Trump is “brilliant” businessman have a valid point if only
dollars and property accumulated is the lone factor considered.
Hating
Hillary, to many, is second-nature to many; she is not overly charismatic, not
warm and cuddly (like President Clinton) and holds grudges until the sun
revolves around the Earth. Even many people that voted for her twice get it.
The
hate-anyone-gay (or hating immigrants, people of color or because of personal
religion) is harder for many to understand. We all come from immigrant families
(even Native Americas); this country is, like it or not, a cornucopia of the
world’s people.
For
more than four decades, I have written newspaper editorials and columns
declaring that this country needed a businessman as president instead of a
born-and-bred politician or military leader. Where my reasoning and writings
fell short was that I failed to distinguish what type of businessman should be
elected.
What
I envisioned in my finite wisdumb (spelled
correctly) was that a common-sense businessman who would gather cabinet
heads and advisers from both parties, the best of the best who truly believed
in the reasons the United States was founded. Party politics be damned! Let’s
create a nation of which we can all be prpud.
The
last president to do this exact execution of filling the nation’s most
important offices and executive positions (the best of the best and even some
who hted the very sight of him) was Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kerns Goodwin’s
“Team of Rivals” is a masterful insight into a man who many career politicians
mocked, yet when he died, they all mourned his passing.
There
is no more “party of Lincoln”. There is no more Republican Party. The 2019
version is the party of Trump and those that support him – the Cruzes, Cronyns,
Gohmerts, etc. – will someday look back on the blind followers of this
narcissistic political chameleon and shake their heads in sorrow.
We
are witnesses, day by day, story by story, of the end of the Republican Party,
the strong political organization that now believes in whatever Trumps dictates
in important rather than in what philosophical path the party has traditionally
followed.
Mark
it down: When Trump leaves office, now that he’s tasted real power (and not
just power obtained by the almighty dollar), he will not go quietly into that
good night. He will start DJT Network, keep his base supporters glued to this electronic
spiel of mistrust and hate 24/7 and the third party he will start (Keep America
Great!) will ensure the Republicans will never, ever again win a national
election.
If
you are a Republican, this is the path on your party is headed.
“…all the people who were with him each covered his head and went up weeping….”2 Samuel 15:30
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