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Mcconnell Obstruction Continues as He Refuses to Agree to Organizing Resolution, Further Slowing Down Biden's Cabinet Nominees
By refusing to agree to organizing resolution, McConnell — now in the minority — is allowing Republicans to maintain control of committees and further slow down confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet nominees.McConnell is making outsized demands in an attempt to further delay confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet and his ability to swiftly implement his agenda.President Biden’s Cabinet is already behind in the confirmation process due to the Senate’s failure to keep nominees moving forward in the lame duck session.“Enough is enough: McConnell needs to drop his unreasonable demands and let the Senate get to work.”
WASHINGTON
In a last-ditch effort to obstruct President Biden's Cabinet and agenda, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is refusing to agree to the organizing resolution that would allow Democrats to take control of committees and quickly confirm President Biden's Cabinet. The latest obstruction from McConnell leaves Republicans in control of many committees, allowing them to hold up Biden's Cabinet nominees even further, despite Democrats' majority as of yesterday. Under McConnell's leadership during the lame-duck period, the Senate failed to fulfill its responsibility to "advise and consent" on the president's nominees, holding only five hearings for nominees ahead of Inauguration Day with only one nominee confirmed the same day as President Biden's swearing-in.
"If McConnell wanted to work with Democrats in good faith, he would have spent the last two months moving President Biden's Cabinet nominees through the confirmation process -- a precedent afforded to every previous president. Instead, he and his caucus slow-walked nominees, leaving President Biden with fewer confirmed Cabinet positions than any other president in recent history," said Mairead Lynn, spokesperson for the Accountable Senate War Room. "These outsized demands are nothing more than a last-ditch effort to further obstruct the Biden administration from implementing the will of the people. Enough is enough: McConnell needs to drop his unreasonable demands and let the Senate get to work."
McConnell's handling of nominees in the lame-duck period and his current demands to the organizing resolution are in stark contrast to the agreement made under a 50-50 Senate in 2001. Ahead of President Bush's Inauguration -- and Vice President Cheney's tie-breaking vote giving Republicans the majority -- Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle fulfilled the Senate's duty to keep the nomination process moving forward, holding hearings for 12 of Bush's 14 Cabinet nominees ahead of Inauguration Day. As Schumer pushes for the same power-sharing agreement made under Daschle and Republican Leader Trent Lott, McConnell is torpedoing the Senate's ability to get to work with outsized demands.
Accountable.US is a nonpartisan watchdog that exposes corruption in public life and holds government officials and corporate special interests accountable by bringing their influence and misconduct to light. In doing so, we make way for policies that advance the interests of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.
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ICE Sued Over 'Civil Rights Catastrophe' at West Texas Concentration Camp
“The conditions here in this ICE tent camp in a desert are inhumane and cruel," said one Cameroonian plaintiff in the suit. "No human being should ever have to go through this."
May 30, 2026
A group of legal advocacy groups on Friday sued US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies and officials over "inhumane" conditions at the country's largest concentration camp for immigrants detained during the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, Human Rights Watch, and the law firm Farella Braun + Martel LLP filed suit against ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and associated officials, in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four people seeking to represent a class action for all others held at Camp East Montana, a 60-acre facility located in the Chihuahuan Desert on the grounds of Fort Bliss, an Army base and the site of one of the concentration camps where Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals were imprisoned during World War II. Approximately 2,500 immigrants are being detained there.
Citing “a Civil Rights catastrophe,” a group of legal and civil rights organizations in Texas sued the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday over conditions at Camp East Montana in El Paso, the country’s largest immigration detention facility.More: substack.com/@shero/note/...
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— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule.bsky.social) May 30, 2026 at 10:03 AM
The lawsuit documents accounts of what the ACLU called "horrific rights violations" at the facility, including:
- Severe medical neglect and disease outbreaks, including a months-long measles outbreak that infected at least 14 people;
- Violent uses of force by officers against detained immigrants and coercive threats of deportation;
- Excessive and arbitrary use of solitary confinement to punish people for requesting basic needs like medical care or hygiene;
- Inadequate and rancid food that have caused detained people to lose extreme amounts of weight;
- Exposure to dust storms through openings in tent walls that subjects people to respiratory disease; and
- Dangerous and unsanitary living conditions in the tent camp, among other rights violations.
“These conditions are longstanding, pervasive, and well-documented, and defendants’ continued inaction in the face of known risks shows their deliberate indifference—not mere negligence—to detainees’ constitutional rights,” the lawsuit states.
At least three detainees have died at Camp East Montana, including Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban who, according to witnesses, died after being handcuffed and placed in a chokehold by guards. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Lunas Campos' death a homicide by asphyxia.
Detained immigrants have reported beatings and sexual abuse, medical neglect, hunger and insufficient food, and denial of access to attorneys at the facility.
“The conditions here in this ICE tent camp in a desert are inhumane and cruel. No human being should ever have to go through this," case plaintiff Gerald Akari Angye said in a statement Friday.
I have already experienced torture in my home country of Cameroon and I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America," he continued. "I have been beaten here and even today, I still have a brace on my hands and wrist. I am in pain and I am scared to be here."
"No one deserves such cruel treatment," Akari Angye added. "We are all humans and deserve to be treated like it.”
Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, called Camp East Montana "nothing short of a civil rights catastrophe."
“Since the day it opened, the facility has repeatedly made headlines for horrific rights violations and even the deaths of three detained people, yet ICE has still evaded accountability for its conduct," Virgien added. "We’re suing to ensure that no other human being has to endure the inhumane treatment that the Trump administration has inflicted on our clients.”
Another case plaintiff, named in the suit as Navdeep, said, "It feels like we are just political pawns taken from our jobs and families and forced into a temporary tent that is not designed for human life."
“We could die here, and it feels like no one here would care," they continued. "With everything happening behind closed doors, I worry the people running this place might cover up the truth about a death or the other injustices that happen here."
"It’s important for people to know the truth of what is happening here," Navdeep added. "Being part of this lawsuit is important to me because many people are vulnerable or they become weak because of the conditions here. Even though we come from many different places, we are all human. I want to be a voice for everyone here.”
After receiving "numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment" of detainees, 35 Democratic Texas state lawmakers earlier this year demand a probe into alleged abuses at Camp East Montana.
Democratic members of US Congress have also sounded the alarm over conditions at Camp East Montana. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has also called out profiteering by the private contractors running the camp.
Amentum Services Inc. took over operations from Acquisition Logistics LLC earlier this year. The latter was never registered to operate in Texas and the former "has a history of health, safety, and other violations of federal law," according to the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen.
The Trump administration is currently moving forward with a plan to convert industrial warehouses into more ICE concentration camps. The agency has already purchased or contracted for at least 11 warehouses in eight states as part of the $38 billion plan.
While some critics take exception to the concentration camp description, the ICE facilities fit the dictionary definition of the term. The US has a long history of operating concentration camps, with imprisoned peoples ranging from Indigenous tribes during the Trail of Tears and Long Walk to escaped and freed slaves—officially called "contraband" in the Civil War—to Filipinos, Okinawans, and Vietnamese during three different 20th century wars, to Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during World War II.
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem," talk show host and author Thom Hartmann wrote earlier this year for Common Dreams. "And that’s exactly what ICE is building now. History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
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'A 1-2 Punch Against Trump's Corruption': Judge Blocks Renaming, Closure of Kennedy Center
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it."
May 30, 2026
A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump's renaming of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts after himself is illegal and temporarily barred the president from shuttering the Washington, DC cultural institution for renovations.
Trump's effort to rename the iconic Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center came after the president used his authority to purge the institution's board and appoint new trustees. In an unprecedented move, the trustees then voted to make Trump the center's board chair. Last December, the board voted unanimously to rename the institution—a move that violated federal law.
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center board, sued over the name change, which outraged many Americans and, along with Trump's addition of his name to the US Institute of Peace, sparked legislation aimed at banning the naming or renaming of federal assets after sitting presidents.
"May the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts be renamed absent Congressional authorization? The answer, plain from the face of the statute, is no," US District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his ruling on Beatty's suit. "Nor can any other individual be memorialized on the front portico of the building."
BREAKING: we just won our Kennedy Center case!Both the renaming & the closure of the Kennedy Center are enjoinedKudos to our wonderful client @repbeatty.bsky.social & my colleagues @democracydefendersaction.org & Washington Litigation GroupThis is a 1-2 punch against Trump's corruption
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— Norm Eisen (@normeisen.bsky.social) May 29, 2026 at 11:55 AM
Originally called the National Cultural Center, the Kennedy Center was renamed via an act of Congress following former President John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination.
"It is hard to imagine a more intentional legislative effort to call the Center by its chosen name," Cooper—an appointee of former President Barack Obama—wrote. "The organic statute also takes pains to ensure that the Kennedy Center’s public spaces honor President Kennedy and President Kennedy alone... The prohibition is unambiguous."
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it," the judge added.
Cooper also temporarily blocked Trump's planned two-year closure of the Kennedy Center for renovations.
"In ratifying President Trump’s closure announcement, the Board was derelict in discharging the full range of its responsibilities to the Center," he wrote. "More specifically, the Board based its decision on an insufficient, one-sided presentation of information and
neglected to consider the full range of its statutory obligations and potential adverse consequences of closure on programming and memorial functions."
While Trump claimed the decision to shutter the Kennedy Center was based on input from a group of “many Highly Respected experts,” who said the center was “tired, broken, and dilapidated," critics including John F. Kennedy's descendants pointed to artists not wanting to perform there after the president's takeover and purge, which resulted in programming including the world premier of a documentary film about his wife panned by one critic as "a scowling void of pure nothingness."
Cooper said that the Kennedy Center could be allowed to close “after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion."
Beatty welcomed Cooper's ruling, which she said "rightly affirms that this administration's efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law."
"The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump," she added. "He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution."
Trump, meanwhile, took to his Truth Social network to rail against Cooper, "a Judge appointed by Barack Hussein Obama."
"Cooper ruled that The Kennedy Center, which was going to close in early July for largescale renovations and construction due to years of neglect, decay, and poor maintenance, and which was to be transformed by the Trump Administration into the Finest Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World, is not allowed to close for these renovations, which would not be possible to properly do without such a closure," the president wrote.
"Additionally, Judge Cooper ruled that the 36 Member Board of Trustees, which unanimously voted to add the name 'TRUMP' onto the former Kennedy Center, making it The Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition, and the name, 'TRUMP,' must be removed," Trump's screed continued.
"I took great pride in taking over a losing Institution, and looked forward to making it into a Great and Prestigious WINNER for Washington, D.C., and indeed, the United States of America," he continued. "Unfortunately, Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life."
"Therefore, based on the fact that the Radical Left Democrats care more about opposing your favorite President, ME, than saving a dying Performing Arts Center, almost all of which lose large amounts of money throughout the Country, we are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it," Trump said.
"Judge Cooper should be ashamed of himself! I cannot be involved with a situation where danger to the Public is allowed to flourish in plain and open sight," the president wrote. "Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into 'NEVER NEVER LAND.'"
"There has never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I," he added, "but, that’s OK, I will continue to do, what is considered to be, a great job for the wonderful people of our Country."
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Kenyan Court Rejects Plan for US Ebola Quarantine Center Amid Growing Outbreak
Kenya's largest medical professionals union, which welcomed the ruling, argued that if setting up an Ebola quarantine facility "is too dangerous for America, it is too dangerous for Kenya."
May 29, 2026
A day after US officials said Kenya had approved a request to open a quarantine center for Americans exposed to a rare strain of the Ebola virus, a court in the East African nation on Friday temporarily blocked the plan amid a growing outbreak in neighboring Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The High Court prohibited the Kenyan government from establishing or operating any Ebola exposure, quarantine, isolation, or treatment facility in the country under any agreement with the United States or any other foreign government or agency.
The court also blocked Kenya's government from allowing anyone infected with or exposed to Ebola into the country pending the outcome of the case, which was filed by the Katiba Institute, a civil rights group.
“At its core, the case is about preserving constitutional accountability, protecting public health, and ensuring that no government may place expediency above the lives and safety of the people of Kenya,” Katiba Institute executive director Nora Mbagathi said Thursday.
A 50-bed Ebola quarantine center was set to open Friday at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, located approximately 125 miles north of Nairobi. The facility would have been operated by members of the US Public Health Service, a uniformed branch of the Department of Health and Human Services.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday during a Cabinet meeting that “we cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States."
However, US public health officials strongly criticized the plan to quarantine Americans in Kenya instead of repatriating them, with one emergency physician accusing the Trump administration of “a dramatic abdication of what we owe our own."
Elected leaders in Laikipia County welcomed the High Court's ruling. They had opposed the US quarantine center, and had asked in a joint statement prior to the decision, "Why Laikipia?"
"What does the US government know about this that they are not accepting their own affected citizens into their soil but are ready to have them elsewhere?" the officials added.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU), which had strongly opposed the quarantine center and had threatened to strike, also welcomed the High Court ruling.
"We are utterly disgusted by the government’s apparent willingness to trade national biosecurity and the lives of its citizens for foreign aid," KMPDU secretary general Davji Bhimji Attelah said in a statement Thursday, referring to the $13.5 million the Trump administration pledged for Ebola preparedness in Kenya, part of a broader $125 million US commitment toward fighting the disease.
Kenyan healthcare workers are pushing back hard against reported plans for the U.S. to establish Ebola quarantine/treatment facilities in Kenya for exposed American personnel during the ongoing Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in Central/East Africa.
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— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) May 28, 2026 at 11:31 AM
"We will not sit back and watch Kenya be treated as a containment colony for a lethal pathogen that we did not generate," Attelah added. “We will not tolerate an apartheid healthcare model on Kenyan soil. If it is too dangerous for America, it is too dangerous for Kenya."
Critics say President Donald Trump’s ideologically driven decision to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), his administration’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, and reduced funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s global public health efforts have adversely affected the response to the current Ebola epidemic, compared with 2014 and 2019 outbreaks.
The WHO said Friday that there were a total of 906 suspected Ebola cases and 223 suspected deaths reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as of Wednesday, and 125 confirmed cases in the DRC and 9 in Uganda, with 18 deaths among the confirmed cases in both countries.
Ebola—which typically kills between 25% and 90% of infected people, depending upon the strain of the virus and quality of available medical care—causes widespread and often catastrophic damage to the body’s blood vessels, immune system, and organs. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals, including fruit bats, porcupines, and non-human primates, and then spreads between humans through direct contact with the blood or bodily fluids of infected people.
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