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<p>FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The conservative Madison Project is running a radio ad this week in southeastern Kentucky criticizing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who the group contends is slow to take stands on important issues.</p> <p>The spot, airing in conjunction with the World Chicken Festival in London, calls McConnell "the biggest chicken of all."</p>

The Club For Growth stood with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) Tuesday, calling for senators to vote against cloture on a stopgap spending bill that passed the House last week. The conservative, anti-tax group said it would it include the vote on its 2013 scorecard. "To keep the House defund language secure, and to continue using the leverage of the continuing resolution, opponents of ObamaCare should vote "NO" on the cloture vote to end debate," wrote the group's vice president of government affairs Andy Roth in a note to congressional offices.

Sen. Ted Cruz’s message to his fellow Republicans as the potential government shutdown looms is clear: A cloture vote for the continuing resolution is a vote in favor of Obamacare. In an interview with CNN, Cruz rejected the notion that his plan to pass a continuing resolution in the Senate that defunds Obamacare is doomed to failure. He called on Republicans to vote against cloture on the bill that would bring it to an up or down vote. “Any senator who votes for cloture on this bill is voting to give Harry Reid the authority to fund Obamacare with just...

This is an urgent update on the fight to stop funding Obamacare. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) — the top two Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate — announced yesterday that they will support "cloture" on the government funding bill, giving Harry Reid and the Democrats a procedural green light to fund Obamacare with only 50 votes. Mitch McConnell and John CornynBreitbart News is reporting that McConnell and Cornyn are using their leadership positions to pressure other Republicans to oppose Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) in their effort to defund Obamacare. According to a...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus backed Sen. Ted Cruz’s anti-Obamacare quasi-filibuster Tuesday, possibly sending a message to senior GOP leaders who are criticizing Cruz’s tactics in defunding Obamacare. Cruz is speaking against Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plans to hold a vote on a stopgap continuing budget resolution Wednesday, where Reid is expected to strip out language from the House version of the budget resolution that defunds Obamacare. Cruz doesn’t want the vote to happen until Obamacare is definitively defunded — without Reid’s expected changes. “In a fight between Harry Reid and Ted Cruz, I will stand with Ted...

Rand Paul is standing with Ted Cruz. The Kentucky GOP senator will oppose a vote to end debate later this week on a House-passed spending bill, which includes a provision defunding Obamacare, a spokeswoman said. Cruz (R-Texas) is urging Republican senators to halt the bill procedurally later this week to prevent Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) from removing the Obamacare provision and pushing a clean spending bill back to the House this weekend. Paul also joined Cruz on the Senate floor Tuesday as Cruz mounted an hours-long speech in opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Despite facing a conservative challenger in his own primary race, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is defying demands from conservative members of his conference to try to block an emergency spending measure in a bid to defund President Obama’s 2010 health law. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has set a key vote for Wednesday on the House passed-legislation that would avoid a partial government shutdown on Oct. 1, while simultaneously canceling funding for ObamaCare. Cruz is calling on his colleagues to block the House bill, even though he supports it as part of a procedural effort to tie...

A conservative political action committee on Tuesday slammed two of the Senate’s top Republicans as “turncoats” who have “surrendered” on the health care fight. “Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn have surrendered to Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democrats,” charged an email blast from the Senate Conservatives Fund. “More importantly, they have surrendered to Obamacare — the biggest job killer in America.” -snip- “We knew Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn weren’t with us when they voted to fund Obamacare earlier this year,” the email continued. “But then, under pressure from grassroots, they said they supported the effort to defund it....

As legislators squabble over defunding Obamacare in a government funding bill, the top two Republican senators find themselves in the crosshairs, not of a Democratic group, but of a conservative group. Senate Conservatives Fund has declared Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn “turncoats,” after both said they would not support a filibuster by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to prevent a vote on the House bill that funds the government while defunding Obamacare, a move Cruz hopes will prevent Democrats from amending the bill to fund the health-care law. On Tuesday, McConnell said he supported the...

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WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz began a filibuster Tuesday with the intent of defunding the Affordable Care Act, known also as Obamacare. The Texas Republican noted while on the Senate floor, “I intend to speak about defunding ObamaCare until I am unable to stand.” Cruz additionally asserted that Democrats are not listening to their constituents in regards to the health care law, which is set to take effect Oct. 1. “I rise today in opposition to ObamaCare in an effort to speak for 26 million Texans and 300 million Americans,” Cruz asserted. “It is time quite frankly to make...

As Congress trudges toward its next budget showdown, the Mr. Fix-It of Washington is looking more like its Invisible Man as he balances his leadership imperatives with his re-election ones. Mr. McConnell is dealing with an unwanted primary challenge from a well-financed Tea Party candidate who keeps telling Kentucky voters the senator is an establishment pawn. Mr. McConnell is leading his challenger by a large margin in internal polls. But after Tea Party candidates rose from nowhere in the past two elections to beat veteran senators, Mr. McConnell is leaving nothing to chance. “He’s got an election,” said Senator Harry...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) broke with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Monday, revealing that he won't filibuster legislation to fund the government in service of conservative goals to defund Obamacare. The Republican leader's decision is a major blow to the push by Cruz and powerful conservative activist groups, who wanted Republicans to unite and filibuster a continuing resolution until Democrats caved agreed to gut funding for the Affordable Care Act. "Senator McConnell supports the House Republicans' bill and will not vote to block it, since it defunds Obamacare and funds the government without increasing spending by a penny,"...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday declined to take sides in the squabble among House Republicans over a government shutdown. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has tried to convince his colleagues to support legislation that would keep the government open after Oct. 1 while forcing the Senate to vote on defunding ObamaCare. That approach was dismissed by the right wing of his conference, and now 70 House conservatives are supporting an effort to tie a one-year defunding of ObamaCare to the government funding resolution. McConnell, who crafted deals to end the 2011 debt-ceiling standoff and the 2012 fight over...

EXCERPT McConnell says the proposal is, quote, "utterly detached from a wider strategy to end the civil war" in Syria.

A conservative group is launching a radio ad challenging Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to oppose any money for President Barack Obama’s health care law even if it means triggering a government shutdown. The Senate Conservatives Fund is spending nearly $50,000 on the 60-second commercial that will begin airing on Tuesday in Kentucky, where McConnell is locked in a tough race for a sixth term. The GOP leader faces both a primary rival, businessman Matt Bevin, and a Democratic foe, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. “Republicans in Congress can stop Obamacare by refusing to fund it, but Senator Mitch...

I am not sure I would have released the internal polling Mitch McConnell just released in Kentucky. He has it McConnell 68 and Matt Bevin at 21% That superficially sounds good. But consider that this outperforms both Marco Rubio against Charlie Crist at this point in 2009 and Ted Cruz against David Dewhurst at this point in 2011. Likewise, consider that Matt Bevin’s name identification in Kentucky is minimal, while Mitch McConnell is the Senate Republican Leader. In other words, a third of Kentucky Republicans either have no opinion or want a generic Republican against Mitch McConnell and two-thirds want...

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign manager said in a taped telephone conversation earlier this year he was "sorta holding my nose" while doing the job, a less-than-flattering remark about a powerful GOP establishment figure struggling to shore up support among tea party voters back home in Kentucky. In a brief telephone interview Thursday, Jesse Benton did not dispute the authenticity of the taping. "I'm not 100 percent positive. I'm not confirming that, but I'm not denying it either," he said. In a separate statement emailed to reporters, he said, "It is truly sick that someone would record a...

Republican Senate candidate Matt Bevin launched a Facebook petition Tuesday to demand that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sign a letter by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) vowing to block legislation to keep the federal government open unless it defunds the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. “Over the past couple of days, Sen. McConnell has been asked repeatedly whether he will support Sen. Mike Lee’s effort to defund Obamacare before its implementation on October 1st, and each time, Sen. McConnell has refused to answer," Bevin said. "It is truly sad to see the minority leader of the U.S. Senate so...

It’s only just begun, but the reelection battle of Mitch McConnell – the top Republican in the Senate – is already shaping up to be the marquee race of the 2014 midterms. Start with the primary challenge Senator McConnell faces from Matt Bevin, a wealthy, tea-party-backed businessman, reportedly willing to spend his own money. If McConnell makes it past Mr. Bevin, he’s poised to face likely Democratic nominee Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state and member of a well-connected political family, in the general election. Add to the mix McConnelll’s mediocre job approval ratings in the state – only...