Mitch McConnell Archives - Public Seminar

Body & Mind

Aging Can Bring Wisdom or Not—It Depends on How You Live Your Life

A dancer’s perspective

April 17, 2023 • by Jan Erkert

Growing older is a constant dance between how we feel about our age, how we judge other people, and how we are perceived by others....

Aging Can Bring Wisdom or Not—It Depends on How You Live Your Life

Politics

A potential Trump indictment in New York created many problems for the Republican Party leaders

March 21, 2023 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Trump's demands for his supporters to rally around him again have produced anemic results......

Politics

Listen to Joe: (Some) Republicans Do Want To Take Your Social Security and Medicare

They always have: here’s the history the GOP doesn’t want you to know

February 14, 2023 • by Claire Potter

Republicans are always trying to cut virtually every program that makes life worth living—education, the arts, research—and social programs...

The Internet

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

October 5, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

“hello literally everyone,” the official account of Twitter tweeted on Monday afternoon, after Facebook and its affiliated platforms Instagram and WhatsApp went dark at about 11:40 this morning. The Facebook outage lasted for more than six hours and appears to have been caused by an internal error. But the void ...

Politics

Battle of the Budget

What happens when the Republicans filibuster a necessary measure to keep the government operating?

September 29, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

On September 27, the Senate considered a bill to fund the government until December and to raise the debt ceiling. The Republicans joined together to filibuster it. Such a move is extraordinary. Not only did the Republicans vote against a measure that would keep the government operating and keep it from ...

Politics

Democrats and the Conservative Supreme Court

Is there incentive to attack the court’s legitimacy?

September 28, 2021 • by John Stoehr

Last week, opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote about the sinking reputation of the United States Supreme Court. With respect to a new abortion law in Texas, which invalidates Roe v. Wade, the Post columnist said that, “The nub of the problem is not that (or not only that) voters are angry that the court allowed ...

Democrats and the Conservative Supreme Court

Politics

Will GOP Voters Go to War with Corporations Over New Vaccine Mandates?

And what are Republican leaders going to do when the civil society moves in the direction of good public health?

August 30, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ Now that the Food and Drug Administration has finally given its full blessing to the Pfizer BioNTech shot, the president is jawboning corporate leaders into establishing mandates requiring employees to be vaccinated. This is not a reversal, as some reporters have said. Joe Biden is not ordering firms to do ...

Will GOP Voters Go to War with Corporations Over New Vaccine Mandates?

Columnists

Not One Senate Republican Is For the People

The right to vote is under assault as the GOP defends a government by white men, for white men

June 23, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ There were three important takeaways from this week’s Senate vote on whether to begin debate on S1, the For the People Act, the bill that would protect voting rights, end partisan gerrymandering, establish new ethics rules for federal officials, and curb big money in politics. The first is that Senator Joe ...

Not One Senate Republican Is For the People

Columnists

Why Isn’t Joe Manchin For the People?

Manchin appears to be blaming the person calling the fire department, rather than the arsonist, and then saying the firefighters need to work with the guys holding the gasoline cans and matches

June 8, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ Complaining that “the fundamental right to vote has itself become overtly politicized,” Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) published an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail yesterday saying that he would vote against S1, the For the People Act, arguing that protecting the right to vote should “never be done in a partisan ...

Columnists

The Business PACs Are Back in Business

Surprise! One-party rule might be profitable

June 8, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ Roll Call reported political action committees (PACs) have restarted making contributions to members of the United States Congress. This includes the 147 Republicans who voted against certifying Electoral College votes after the militant storming of the United States Capitol. Cash to both parties mostly stopped in the weeks after the ...

Columnists

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

We need a functioning government. National commissions rarely solve the problems they are formed to address–and often, they create new ones

June 2, 2021 • by Claire Potter

On Friday, May 9, the Senate failed to pass a bill establishing a bipartisan federal commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, an insurrection intended to block Joe Biden from being inaugurated as president. The cloture vote was 54-35, six votes shy of the number needed to bring the ...

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

Economy

Infrastructure Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving

But the GOP will oppose this important jobs bill and the taxes one billionaires that could redistribute wealth to millions of Americans

April 1, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ This week, President Joe Biden unveiled a new $2 trillion infrastructure proposal titled The American Jobs Plan. The statement introducing the plan notes that the United States currently ranks 13th in the world for the quality of our infrastructure, and that our public domestic investment as a share of the ...

Mitch McConnell

Aging Can Bring Wisdom or Not—It Depends on How You Live Your Life

A dancer’s perspective

All Trump’s Men

A potential Trump indictment in New York created many problems for the Republican Party leaders

The Fall of Facebook

Plus the insurrection subcommittee prepares to confront Trump and the debt ceiling fight continues

Battle of the Budget

What happens when the Republicans filibuster a necessary measure to keep the government operating?

Democrats and the Conservative Supreme Court

Is there incentive to attack the court’s legitimacy?

Will GOP Voters Go to War with Corporations Over New Vaccine Mandates?

And what are Republican leaders going to do when the civil society moves in the direction of good public health?

Not One Senate Republican Is For the People

The right to vote is under assault as the GOP defends a government by white men, for white men

Why Isn’t Joe Manchin For the People?

Manchin appears to be blaming the person calling the fire department, rather than the arsonist, and then saying the firefighters need to work with the guys holding the gasoline cans and matches

The Business PACs Are Back in Business

Surprise! One-party rule might be profitable

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

We need a functioning government. National commissions rarely solve the problems they are formed to address–and often, they create new ones

Infrastructure Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving

But the GOP will oppose this important jobs bill and the taxes one billionaires that could redistribute wealth to millions of Americans

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