Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell visited Laura Ingraham‘s radio show today and let his thoughts known about Senator John McCain‘s plans to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

For one, McConnell told Ingraham, Congress won’t be touching the issue of border security.

Chris Matthews isn’t happy with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have fun explaining why. He started by likening him to a character “only Charles Dickens would have fully created” (presumably because McConnell has been wearing a wedding dress ever since he was jilted at the altar years ago). He then said the Senator was competing with Dick Cheney for the “troll under the bridge” position.

This morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will oppose the START Treaty, which has been one of President Obama’s top foreign policy priorities. In an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley on State of the Union, he told Crowley: “I’ve decided that I cannot support the treaty. I think the verification provisions are inadequate and I do worry about the missile defense implications of it.”

This has not been a good week for Sean Hannity. First political commentator Imogen Lloyd Webber discredited his arguments fact-by-fact, then congressman Anthony Weiner more than held his own in a shout-filled debate. Now on the issue of GOP senators including earmarks in the new spending bill, a seemingly hypocritical position even other FOX News anchors find confusing, never fear, because Hannity is on the case to . . . make you even more confused.

With the tax cut deal in place (except for Bernie Sanders’ bazillion hour filibuster), it would seem to be all Liberal grousing and Conservative champagne popping. Or is it? Some Conservatives are also not thrilled and one of them appears to be none other than Rush Limbaugh who, today, went off on a fiery tirade against the lack of “Republican vision” on his radio show.

This morning on Meet the Press, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called Julian Assange a “high tech terrorist” for his role in publicly releasing over 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

In the game of neighborhood kickball that is the American government, Republican Senators have just stuck their tongues out, taken the ball home, and effectively ended the game. In a letter signed by all 42 Republicans currently in office, they’ve pledged to block every piece of legislation that comes through in this session until the Bush-era tax cuts are extended. Gosh, can’t these kids get along? This is worse than the argument they had on whether or not to use a ghost runner on third.

At Tuesday’s White House briefing, I asked Robert Gibbs to square Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s remarks to National Journal’s Major Garrett that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” with the President’s hope that Republicans will work with him after the midterms. Gibbs’ answer, while [...]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s remarkably honest confession to National Journal‘s Major Garrett that “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” got kicked around at length during Tuesday’s White House briefing. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs‘ responses seemed designed to shame the opposition into post-midterm cooperation, but several reporters, myself included, wondered from whence this  hope sprang. The voters seem poised to reward McConnell’s party for two years of obstruction, so what is their incentive to do anything differently?

Republican Congressional candidate Tim Walberg (not the unsung “Sixth New Kid on the Block”) has joined the ranks of mainstream GOP figures to make a play for the all-important “Birther vote.” He recently told a group of voters at a coffee shop that, while he “take(s) him at his word that he’s an American citizen,” he’s got a plan for Obama to put the whole thing to rest: a private birth certificate viewing party.

The most entertaining part of the clip, though, is the Council of Elders that Walberg puts together to bear witness to the grand event. (h/t Think Progress via Alan Colmes)

This morning, Tom Junod over at Esquire‘s political blog offered his take on why Republican voters have been more energized than Democratic ones: sex appeal. In an article titled “How D.C. Became Hollywood for Semi-Attractive People,” he argues that conservative women like Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann are both “crazy” and the new “standard of beauty,” while lib ladies are “either old or unattractive.” As he puts it, “the Democrats became the CNN to the Republican Fox, clueless in their competence, bewildered by their own best intentions.”

Last night Keith Olbermann devoted a segment on Countdown to a deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid struck with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell involving President Obama and recess appointments – specifically, that the President now can’t make them because Reid will keep the Senate “in session” on a technicality. (He once cut a similar deal so President Bush couldn’t make recess appointments.) Olbermann, as you might expect, was not thrilled about this deal.

In her latest black-and-white YouTube video, Lady Gaga sends a strong message to key Republican senators regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The pop singer singles out Senators John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Jim Inhofe, and Jeff Sessions, telling the men, “Do your job.”

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told host David Gregory that President Obama “says he’s a Christian, and I take him at his word.” Gregory was asking McConnell about a recent Pew poll that shows increasing numbers of Americans, especially Republicans, who believe Obama is a Muslim. The real question, though, is why do Americans care?

It seemed inevitable that someone would say this to Sen. Al Franken before his tenure in Congress was over. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, fed up with Franken’s alleged various funny faces and eye-rolling during his speaking time, went up to the senator after his allotted time and derisively reminded him that “this isn’t Saturday Night Live, Al.

Rachel Maddow has been noticing a trend in Congressional negotiations: every time Democrats try to shift their legislation to the right to appeal to Republicans, the moderate Republicans claim they are thinking about voting for it– or, as she put it, “Scott Brown has to put his thinking shorts on”– and then they vote against it. What do Democrats get out of these deals?

It must have been painful for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to say anything about Rand Paul after his Civil Rights Act comments other than “told you so,” but somehow he managed to pull together and give the GOP Senate candidate some advice on how to repair his image after last week, after distancing himself from Paul’s comments on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

It’s hard to blame Rand Paul for pulling out of a Meet the Press appearance on Friday after the kind of week he’d had following Tuesday’s Republican primary election in Kentucky. But was it Rand’s decision? Politico is reporting this morning that Paul canceled the appearance because “senior Republicans” told him to do so. Two senior Republicans in particular.

Last Tuesday, Rachel Maddow dedicated a segment to comparing Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to failed Bush era nominee Harriet Miers; yesterday, she pointed out why many prominent Republicans should have gone through the trouble, as well. Taking on Sens. John Cornyn, Jim DeMint, Jeff Sessions, and Mitch McConnell– all of whom supported Miers despite her similar lack of judicial experience.

During today’s White House press briefing, NPR’s Mara Liasson asked about Senator Mitch McConnell‘s “blasting the White House for jamming down the bill” just after he had met with President Obama. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used an odd metaphor to dismiss complaints that the administration wasn’t willing to work with the GOP, saying “Republicans have made it to church” but “very few to the altar.” And some wonder why critics of this administration claim a messiah complex.

Politico has set out to find what Tea Partiers think of some of the conservative movement’s top leaders. While most results were predictable– their love of Glenn Beck and suspicion towards John McCain, for starters– Politico also found some surprises in the attitudes towards some of their biggest supporters.

After Politico got a hold of the RNC’s fundraising presentation, which played heavily on the fears conservatives have towards President Barack Obama, the party has been scrambling to explain themselves. Senator Mitch McConnell talked to This Week about the documents, saying “I don’t know why anyone would have thought this would have been helpful.”

Through a letter addressed to Henry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb is requesting that all “important negotiations” in reconciling the differences between the House and be opened up to C-SPAN’s cameras. Update – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about this today; view video of his response after the jump: