The Swamp Returns: Mitch to Control Defense Spending & Rules

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Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell isn’t going very far from his pulpit and his doppelganger, John Thune.  He will chair the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and lead the Senate Rules Committee. Both committees are extremely important in getting bills through, scheduling bill reviews, considering appointments, securing funds, sending money to Ukraine, filling the coffers of defense companies, and so much more.

The old turtle and his handlers aren’t giving up power.

THE SWAMP STRIKES BACK

McConnell announced on Thursday that he will chair the Appropriations subcommittee that controls the defense budget next year as he prepares to step down from Senate leadership. He will control the money to Ukraine and the wall. RINO Sen. Collins is a major force in that committee.

“America’s national security interests face the gravest array of threats since the Second World War,” McConnell said in a statement. “At this critical moment, a new Senate Republican majority has a responsibility to secure the future of U.S. leadership and primacy.”

The senator also remarked that he remains committed to “protecting the right to political speech in our elections” as leader of the Rules Committee and to protecting the Senate as an institution.

McConnell frequently evokes Ronald Reagan’s mantra of “peace through strength” when discussing foreign policy risks and how the U.S. should respond. He interprets it differently from Donald Trump. He’s a warmonger and thinks spending money overseas is far more important than spending it domestically. McConnell’s stance will clash with President-elect Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine on foreign affairs.

McConnell worked with Trump on a tax cuts package and the appointment of conservative judges — including three justices to the nine-member Supreme Court — during Trump’s first term as president. However, he could have worked faster.

McConnell thinks not sending our military all over the world is isolationism. McConnell has championed sending weapons and other aid to Ukraine as it fends off Russia’s invasion. He will demand that it continue.

The Power of the Turtle

As Chair of the Senate Rules Committee, he will control the appointments, proceedings, reviewing, and reworking of bills. He and his committee can keep bills from going to the Senate floor. This committee does all that bipartisan wheeling and dealing that we want to escape.

It puts McConnell at the center of weighty topics like federal elections, voting rights, and Senate procedures.

The two committees he will chair work hand in hand.

Mitch has shown in the past that he does not like MAGA. He said it’s “wrong.”  McConnell also said he can hardly find anything he disagrees with Chuck Schumer on.

For starters, he will never allow recess appointments.

McConnell’s control of appropriations and rules is a major problem.


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