‘Evil Genius’ McConnell Humiliates Ocasio-Cortez by Making Dems Vote on Green New Deal

“A mission to save all of creation by investing in massive job creation.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday that the Senate would hold a vote on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s much-hyped Green New Deal resolution.

WATCH: This Is What Happens at a Beto Anti-Wall Rally

McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters that he wants to put Democrats “on the record” about the big-spending climate-change plan, which was introduced last week by the party’s Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts

“We’ll give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal,” McConnell said.

The proposal – a promised progressive panacea for America’s alleged problems that offers net-zero greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years, health care for all, high-speed trains, and support for family farming, among other far-fetched goals – has been endorsed by leading Democratic presidential candidates, including cosponsors Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Booker on Friday favorably compared the proposal to America going to the moon and defeating Nazis during a campaign stop in Iowa on Friday, saying that the Apollo 11 mission would never have happened had the country been limited by what’s practical.

“If we used to govern our dreams that way, we would have never gone to the Moon,” he told supporters, before mimicking what that would have supposedly sounded like. “See that ball in the sky? That’s impractical.’”

Rep. Ilhan Omar – Americans Say ‘Al Qaeda’ Like It’s a Bad Thing/strong>

However, the Green New Deal resolution has no chance of passing the Senate, where it will need 51 votes and faces blanket opposition from Republicans, who hold 53 of the chamber’s 100 seats. What the vote will do is arm Republicans with political ammunition.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said Tuesday that the main motivation is to call out Democratic presidential wannabes, saying it’s important “to get people on record as to how much they really want to take this country in a hard left direction.”

“It’s astonishing to see this many presidential candidates moving so far to the left on a position that is going to raise energy costs for families, hurt jobs in America and really provide almost a government takeover of many of the industries in our country,” said Barrasso, who is the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and a member of GOP leadership.

“If you read the 14 pages of this Green New Deal, it goes way beyond just energy. It’s almost a manifesto of a whole change in what, to me, is democracy in America.”

The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein reported on Twitter Tuesday that a Democratic source had called McConnell’s scheme “evil genius.”

While Red State is saying burn McConnell in effigy, a Dem source is calling the move "evil genius."

— Sam Stein (@samstein) July 12, 2011

Publicly, though, Democrats criticized Republicans for bringing the plan up for a vote, pointing out that Republicans don’t have a counterproposal – which makes sense since they generally think national efforts would be economically destructive and environmentally counterproductive.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Tuesday that the Republicans plan “= no plan.”

Reminder that their plan = no plan.

Why? Because for billionaires, things are already going fine. https://t.co/YrZlU5zvdh

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 13, 2019

She has lately struggled with the facts on climate change and with the rollout of her proposal.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York sounded a similar note – though he notably did not say how he or his caucus would vote.

“My reaction is the first question Republicans should answer is what is their answer on climate change? What are they going to put forward,” he said.

Over in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has not shown much enthusiasm for the Green New Deal, referring to it last Wednesday as the “green dream or whatever they call it.”

But Markey, for one, welcomed the Republican move.

“Republicans don’t want to debate climate change, they only want to deny it,” he said in a statement.

“They have offered no plan to address this economic and national security threat and want to sabotage any effort that makes Big Oil and corporate polluters pay. The principles of the Green New Deal resonate with the American people — a mission to save all of creation by investing in massive job creation.”

WATCH: Spike Lee Calls Christopher Columbus a ‘Terrorist’ MSNBC Has No Issue At All

About Post Author