An audio recording of Senator Mitch McConnell having a an opposition research meeting on his potential opponent Ashley Judd was published by Mother Jones. The meeting reveals McConnell and co-conspirators planning a nasty campaign against Judd including mental health smears. Further issues arose when the transcription seemed to indicate that McConnell may have been using [...]

We are roughly 16 hours from the fiscal cliff deadline Washington time and it seems the Obama Administration may have played its final card regarding the Senate negotiations, Vice President Biden: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Joe Biden engaged in furious overnight negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff and made major [...]

Some skullduggery on the Senate floor today. If I can piece together what happened, Mitch McConnell up and requested unanimous consent for an immediate vote on the Geithner plan – the initial offer that the White House made to avert the fiscal slope. And Harry Reid, calling it a “stunt,” objected to the UC request. [...]

Jenni LeCompte at the Treasury Department fleshes out the permanent debt limit de-fanging proposal that Tim Geithner offered as part of the initial White House term sheet on the fiscal slope. She adds the nice touch of calling it the McConnell proposal, since the Republican Senate leader offered a version of it, which actually went [...]

Mitch McConnell laid out his wish list for the endgame in the fiscal slope negotiations, and it’s basically the kinds of social insurance benefit cuts that the White House offered up in 2011 (which is again a reminder why you don’t offer those up as a bluff, because they will come back to haunt you), [...]

It definitely looks as though we’re headed toward a shift in the Senate rules, though mainly one that facilitates the scheduling of the Senate calendar rather than actually turns the Senate into a majoritarian institution. An exchange between the two leaders on the Senate floor yesterday previewed the expected rule changes: On the Senate floor [...]

So here’s what we got out of MoveOn’s Justin Ruben, who participated in that meeting between President Obama and some labor and progressive groups today. MoveOn’s 7 million members will be pleased to know that President Obama today strongly reiterated his steadfast commitment to ensuring that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent [...]

Chuck Schumer definitely got under the skin of Republicans yesterday by suggesting that Democrats were being led into a “tax reform” trap. Until this point, Republicans had been fairly cagey about their tax plans for a grand bargain, but they were able to garner a mild consensus over the concept of broadening the tax base [...]

Senate Republicans believe that no more judicial nominees should be confirmed for the balance of the year until the elections, citing something called the Thurmond rule, which sets an arbitrary deadline for election-year confirmations. Senate Democrats don’t believe that has been reached yet and want to continue to get judges confirmed, citing the low percentage [...]

The Senate voted down the Republican tax cut plan, which was an amendment to the Democratic plan. As noted earlier, the Republican plan would have simply extended all the Bush tax cuts for one year, while the Democratic plan would only extend up to the first $250,000 of income, and add some stimulus-era tax cuts [...]

There’s been a twist in the tax debate in the Senate. Before now, everyone assumed that the procedural votes today on competing tax plans were largely procedural, and would both get beaten back by forcing a 60-vote cloture threshold on them. But Mitch McConnell just announced that he would allow a majority vote on both [...]