KY-Sen: McConnell (R), "War On Women Won't Work Because Most Barriers Have Been Lifted"

Hey ladies, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) is really pushing you to come out to the polls this November and vote him out:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...

"I could be wrong, but most of the barriers have been lifted," McConnell said during a visit to Buckner, Kentucky on Monday. The report of McConnell's visit was published in The Oldham Era newspaper on Thursday. "Women voters will look at the same issues as men are."

McConnell has appeared to go back and forth on key women's issues in the past. He's previously touted support for the anti-domestic abuse Violence Against Women's Act while also having a consistent record of voting against the legislation.

In response Grimes' campaign called the comment "outrageous."

"The statement is outrageous. It is disappointing and I think that it finally clears up why Senator McConnell has voted against equal pay for equal work for women. Why he doesn't think a pay gap exists. Which is what he's saying in the statement," Grimes campaign manager Jonathan Hurst told TPM on Thursday.

"Finally Mitch McConnell confesses why he voted against equal pay for equal work for women, because he doesn't think a pay gap exists and perhaps with this comment today it also explains why he voted against the Violence Against Women Act, why he stood against Paycheck Act, why he stood against [the] Lilly Ledbetter [Act]," Hurst continued. "Senator McConnell continues to stand against the women of Kentucky and now he's finally explained to us why he doesn't think barriers exist." - TPM, 7/11/14

Women aren't the only group McConnell's been pissing off lately:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Mitch McConnell’s operatives are drawing attention to a local newscast showing Dem candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes speaking to Kentucky reporters. Grimes is asked whether she supports Obama’s request for $3.7 billion to address the crisis with expedited removals and more care for migrating children. She sidesteps that question, but hits McConnell for failing to support broader reform, and reiterates that she’s “for securing our borders and making sure that we give an earned pathway to citizenship.”

McConnell’s team is pillorying her for dodging the question, and it seems clear she’ll need a better answer to it. But if this battle continues, you may see McConnell dodging another consequential question at the core of this issue.

McConnell has criticized Obama’s funding request, arguing that it constitutes giving him a “blank check” (this is false) to continue his “current failed policies.” This raises a question: Which policies is McConnell talking about?

Perhaps McConnell is restating the position of many Republicans, who have argued that Obama’s policy of deferring deportation of the DREAMers is to blame for the current crisis. That’s functionally a call for deporting the DREAMers. Republicans have tended to paper over the real meaning of their own position, but some of them, such as Senator Jeff Sessions, have been honest about its true implications. So does McConnell agree that we should respond to the current crisis by deporting the DREAMers?

There are reasonable grounds for assuming that this is his position until he clarifies otherwise. That’s because McConnell signed a recent letter to the president attacking him for de-prioritizing removals of low-level offenders from the interior. As I’ve tried to show, that is tantamount to calling for maximum deportations from the interior — the DREAMers included, since Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is, for Republicans, the most prominent symbol of Obama lawlessness exacerbating our immigration crisis.

Meanwhile, McConnell opposes legalization for the 11 million, even though the current crisis is an argument for immigration reform, not against it. Despite Grimes’s dodge, she’s right to discuss the crisis in the context of the need for broader reform. - Washington Post, 7/11/14

And here's someone McConnell doesn't want to be associated with right now:

http://www.motherjones.com/...

Three years ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was a huge cheerleader for the controversial budget plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that would have partially privatized Medicare and slashed social spending programs. Now McConnell, who's in a tough reelection fight, is backing away from his support and trying to suggest he was not an outright champion of this draconian budget measure.

In an ad released this week, McConnell's Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, attacks the GOP senator for backing Ryan's 2011 budget proposal, which would have essentially ended Medicare as a guaranteed federal program, slashed Medicaid, and repealed Obamacare. In the ad, an elderly Kentucky man named Don Disney asks why McConnell voted to raise his medical costs by thousands of dollars a year—referring to a provision in the Ryan budget that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would hike out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries by $6,000.

McConnell's campaign fired back, pointing out that the senator did not vote for the proposal itself, but rather only voted in favor of bringing the measure to the Senate floor for a vote. "There is no way to speculate" what McConnell would have done regarding a final vote on the Ryan budget, his campaign insists.

But that's cutting the legislative sausage rather thin. The vote on whether to bring the Ryan plan to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote was the key vote—and McConnell voted in favor of the proposal. It was only because the majority Democrats blocked the bill from reaching a final vote that McConnell did not have a chance to officially vote for passage of the budget proposal. But McConnell himself bragged about having "voted" for the Ryan budget. And he repeatedly praised the Ryan plan and expressed support for the measure.

In a speech on the Senate floor in April 2011, McConnell called Ryan's budget a "serious and detailed plan for getting our nation's fiscal house in order." He maintained that it would "strengthen the social safety net." - Mother Jones, 7/11/14

Whether it's Seniors, immigrants, DREAMers or women, it's clear McConnell really enjoys obstructing their livelihood.  Luckily for us, we have a serious shot at defeating him in November.  Click here to donate and get involved with Grimes' campaign:
http://alisonforkentucky.com/