Mitch McConnell

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’ll only support sending more federal funds to state and local governments if the money is spent on responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and governors across the country have been pleading with Congress to prop up struggling state budgets during the pandemic amid a massive decline in income and sales tax revenues—taxpayers are making and spending less money.

A Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Kentucky is criticizing Republican Mitch McConnell for allegedly trying to defund a federal program that detects and curbs the spread of infectious diseases.

Amy McGrath is one of 10 Democrats seeking her party’s nomination for the Senate seat held by McConnell.

The New Yorker recently reported that in 2017, McConnell pushed an amendment that would have ended funding for the Prevention and Public Health Fund.

McGrath also blames McConnell for decreased funding for important public health organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Union coal miners and retirees breathed a collective sigh of relief after the U.S. Senate passed a spending bill that includes support for miners’ pensions, which had been at risk due to the coal industry’s downturn. 

The bill, which funds the federal government for the coming year, also includes The Bipartisan American Miners Act which secures pension and health benefits for retirees.

The United Mine Workers says that without Congressional action about 82,000 retirees and widows could have lost some or all of their retirement benefits in 2020. 

Daniel Cameron has been sworn in as Kentucky’s next attorney general. He is the first Republican to hold the office since 1948 and the first African American elected on his own ticket to statewide office.

Cameron was supposed to take office on January 6, but started early after newly-elected Gov. Andy Beshear appointed him to fill a vacancy in the office. Beshear, a Democrat, was the previous attorney general and was inaugurated as Kentucky’s 63rd governor on December 10.

Bowling Green and other cities in Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee will join communities across the nation holding rallies on Dec. 17  in support of impeaching President Donald Trump. The rallies are in advance of the planned Dec. 18 vote by the U.S. House of Representatives on whether Trump should be impeached. 

The nationwide network of rallies is called "Nobody Is Above the Law".

Several of the Kentucky rallies planned for Bowling Green, Frankfort, Hodgenville, Louisville, and Owensboro specifically call on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to support the U.S. Constitution and hold an “adequate” impeachment trial in the Senate.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin pledged Wednesday to block all legislation until pensions and health benefits are secured for coal miners. 

Manchin said no legislation will pass the Senate until he is assured that coal miners’ benefits will be in the spending bill used to fund the federal government.

The Bipartisan American Miners Act would permanently secure pensions for about 82,000 coal miners who could lose their retirement benefits by sometime next year without congressional action.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell interviewed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a speaking event at the University of Louisville on Monday.

McConnell did not ask Pompeo about the ongoing impeachment proceedings of President Donald Trump or whether Pompeo would resign to run for U.S. Senate in his home state of Kansas.

McConnell has been an outspoken advocate for Pompeo to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas.