NotesBut the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. From Day 1 of the Obama administration, Mr. McConnell and his colleagues have done everything they could to undermine effective policy, in particular blocking every effort to do the obvious thing — boost infrastructure spending — in a time of low interest rates and high unemployment.Unfurl
NotesA refusal to even to sit at a bargaining table is another way of refusing to govern. The nation’s founders created two chambers for a reason, but Republicans, in their blind fury to harm the least fortunate, are forgetting even those fundamental national values. Unfurl
Notes Now Republicans find themselves boxed in. With taxes scheduled to rise on Jan. 1 in the absence of an agreement, they can’t play their usual game of just saying no to tax increases and pretending that they have a deficit reduction plan. And the president, by refusing to help them out by proposing G.O.P.-friendly spending cuts, has deprived them of political cover. If Republicans really want to slash popular programs, they will have to propose those cuts themselves. Unfurl
NotesIt is delicious to watch a young conservative apply conservative principles to demolish oligopolistic claptrap, even if those industries finance the campaigns of the members of Congress who pay his salary. It is sad to watch his bosses -- who never tire of railing against political correctness - place fealty to corporate elites above the spirit of intellectual inquiry. Unfurl
Notes But although McCain had time to speak on the Senate floor and on television about the lack of information provided to Congress about the attack, he didn't attend the classified briefing for senators Wednesday given to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which he is a member. Unfurl
NotesAmericans didn't intend to elect a Republican majority to the House of Representatives. Thanks to GOP-engineered redistricting, they did.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesThe reality is that so-called pro-life movement is not about saving babies. It’s about regulating sex. That’s why they oppose birth control. That’s why they want to ban abortion even though doing so will simply drive women to have dangerous back alley abortions. That’s why they want to penalize women who take public assistance and then dare to have sex, leaving an exemption for those who become pregnant from rape. It’s not about babies. If it were about babies, they would be making access to birth control widespread and free and creating a comprehensive social safety net so that no woman finds herself with a pregnancy she can’t afford. They would be raising money for research on why half of all zygotes fail to implant and working to prevent miscarriages. It’s not about babies. It’s about controlling women. It’s about making sure they have consequences for having unapproved sex.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesWhat we are saying is that Mr. Limbaugh has abused his unique position within the conservative media to smear and vilify a citizen engaged in the exercise of her First Amendment rights, and in the process he debased a national political discourse that needs no further debasing. This is not the way a decent citizen behaves, much less a citizen who wields significant de facto power in a major political party. While Republican leaders owe no apology for Mr. Limbaugh’s comments, they do have a responsibility to repudiate them — and him. Unfurl
NotesGOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum explained his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape during an interview Friday, saying that women who face such circumstances should "make the best out of a bad situation."Unfurl
NotesBachmann is a national clown and a global embarrassment, an extremist so foul that she poses nearly as much of a threat to Republican legislators as to Democratic ones. She's a Republican bomb-thrower who forgets the throwing part. Both parties will certainly be glad to be rid of her. But Bachmann's repose only means the absence of the messenger, not the absence of those who paid for the message.Unfurl
NotesBut whether John McCain or House Republicans have done or are doing more damage to the Republican Party isn't something that most people care about. What they care about is making sure that Congress doesn't raise their taxes while the economy is still in recovery. And if Republicans cared more about that, we wouldn't be facing this stalemate now. The American public would be better off, and so would the GOP.Unfurl
NotesIf allegations surrounding Koch, who is married, are true, she would become in the eyes of many a prime example of the double standard surrounding the heated marriage amendment battle.Unfurl
NotesLater, Boehner came around to admit that an extension would help boost the economy. To help Boehner out, several actual economists have said that letting the cut expire would, in fact, hurt growth and destroy jobs. According to Macroeconomic Advisers, allowing it to lapse “would reduce GDP growth by 0.5 percent and cost the economy 400,000 jobs.” An analyst at Barclay’s estimated that letting the cut expire would knock 1.5 percent off of first quarter growth next year.Unfurl
NotesORLANDO, Fla. -- The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?Unfurl
NotesNewt Gingrich is currently the leader of the Republican field of presidential candidates. So it’s only fitting that the quotes come out of the skeleton closet. Here are more than a dozen quotes from Newt Gingrich that reveal his lies, his arrogance, his hatred, and his hypocrisy and disqualify him from ever being President.Unfurl
NotesNo, both sides aren't to blame for failure. That goes entirely to the Republicans. Maybe we should actually be giving credit to them for their refusal to accept the gutted sacred cows Democrats offered up on a silver platter. At this point you almost have to be grateful to Grover Norquist for keeping the Republicans in line and saving entitlement programs, this round.Unfurl
NotesIs the United States sliding toward theocracy? That’s what Republican presidential candidates have told us for more than a year. Radical Islam, they’ve argued, is on the verge of taking over our country through Sharia law. But this weekend, at an Iowa forum sparsely covered by the press, the candidates made clear that they don’t mind theocracy—in fact, they’d like to impose it—as long as it’s Christian.Unfurl
NotesIn short, they are going to run a smear campaign that would use the same Fox News talking points that haven’t worked so far. They are going to claim that George Soros is funding Occupy Wall Street, and that the movement is being run by the Democratic Party. Most troubling is their plan to carry surveillance on social media. They are going to monitor the social media used by OWS and what they intend to do that the memo didn’t directly state was spam social media with anti-Occupy Wall Street propaganda.Unfurl
NotesHouse Republicans don’t have time to address the jobs crisis, but they do have time for proposed constitutional amendments that would make the jobs crisis worse.Unfurl
Notes This afternoon the House will vote on another pointless, partisan, finger-pointing bill, but at least this one doesn't directly attack women, so there's that. Today it's the Balanced Budget Amendment, just about the worst idea for the economy as a whole they could come up with. Really. Unfurl
NotesThere’s really no arguing with the consensus view that, after repeatedly courting calamity in prior debates, Rick Perry did grave damage to his presidential campaign Wednesday night. First the guy says that anyone who disagrees with him on illegal immigration must not have a heart, then he gets all twisted up while trying to attack Mitt Romney, and finally comes this new gaffe about … um … hang on a second … wait, it’ll come to me.EmbedUnfurl
Notes<blockquote>After our story, the Capitol Fax, an Illinois political website, contacted Walsh for a response. Walsh wrote in an e-mail that he was “working on an empty stomach and had a quicker fuse than normal.” Despite the fact Walsh’s biggest campaign benefactors come from the banking industry — $132,329 in campaign contributions from the finance industry and $18,400 from bank employees — the freshman congressman claims that he’s “no pal of the big banks.”</blockquote>
I guess along with his government healthcare, we need to make sure he has handlers that keep his blood sugar level up.Unfurl
NotesAfter taking office, Clinton immediately seized the mantle of fiscal discipline from Republicans. Rather than simply trimming the federal deficit, as his GOP predecessors had done, he set out to balance the budget and begin paying down the national debt. To do so, he hiked the top tax bracket to nearly 40 percent and boosted the corporate tax rate to 35 percent. "It cost him both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections," says Chafee, the former GOP senator. "But taming the deficit led to the best economy America's ever had." Following the tax hikes of 1993, the economy grew at a brisk clip of 3.2 percent, creating more than 11 million jobs. Average wages ticked up, and stocks soared by 78 percent. By the spring of 1997, the federal budget was headed into the black.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesYou know what, Mitch? If you don't want to look "intransigent" ... then don't be intransigent! If you don't want to look like you're sabotaging the economy ... then don't sabotage the economy! And if you think rejecting the jobs bill makes you look bad ... then don't reject it!Unfurl
NotesA while back, a memo surfaced that reportedly came from a Fox News executive, in which he directed his staff to always present opposing views on something we can essentially regard as a fact: our planet has been getting warmer. There has been plenty of anecdotal indications that this strategy has been carried out, including a truly bizarre incident in which Bill Nye, on the channel in order to discuss volcanic activity on the Moon, was asked if these volcanoes raised doubts about climate change.Unfurl
NotesThe debate over spending among Republicans in Congress has become so intense that one Senate Republican leader has started wearing a flak jacket to meetings.Unfurl
NotesThe bottom line: A family with an income level of $40,000 to $50,000 would pay $3,407 more a year in taxes, while families making $500,000 to $1 million a year would pay on average $80,315 less, according to the Tax Policy Center.Unfurl
NotesFavorite: Senator Gretchen Whitmer Responds to Pro-Bullying Legislation, by MISenDems Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer responded to Republicans gutting an anti-bullying bill by inserting language that specifically allows bullying to occur based on religious or moral reasons. This legisla...EmbedUnfurl
NotesRemember when President Obama made the same alligator moat joke? Rick Perry called it reprehensible back then. Rick Perry yesterday, mocking the idea of building a fence along the border: HANNITY: You don't need a fence, in your view? PERRY: Oh, I think there's places that strategic fencing.....Unfurl
Notes Nancy Cordes / CBS News:Boehner: Debt deal will include new tax revenues — House Speaker John Boehner addressed one of the biggest sticking points for the 12 member Congressional “supercommittee” today, acknowledging that any bipartisan agreement will need to include some new tax revenue.FeedUnfurl
Notes"Everybody believes we have infrastructure deficiencies and more needs to be spent to repair, replace and in some cases build new infrastructure," Boehner said in a speech. "The problem is nobody wants to pay for it."Unfurl
Notes Today, the Senate is talking about whether they should vote to debate a jobs bill. Another Republican filibuster looms, in which the Republican Senate won't even vote to allow the Senate to debate and vote on doing a little something to try to save this economy. In this madness, Democratic leadership hopes to at the very least shame Republicans and possibly get a few of them to peel off from the Republican agenda of wrecking everything in sight and stealing all the rest. Unfurl
NotesRepublicans may be trying to focus their messaging on jobs and the economy — and hammering President Barack Obama for campaigning — but they still have time for some red meat base-baiting on the House floor.Unfurl
NotesIn a letter to Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and 182 other House Democrats signaled that including controversial policy provisions known as riders could again risk a government shutdown, and the lawmakers demanded that those measures be removed.Unfurl
Notes"With jaw-dropping, surreal, outrageous, unbelievable hypocrisy probably never before matched in scope and breadth, by the first week of March 2009, just over one month into the Obama presidency, Republicans were blaming Obama for the dire economic news. For eight years under Bush any bad news was Clinton's fault; just one month into Obama's presidency, Bush was innocent of all blame. We do not have a vocabulary that can capture the deep absurdity of this assault on reason."Unfurl
Marty Kaplan: GOP Smart on Copyright for 24 Hours
Now That's What I Call Gerrymandering! | Mother Jones
How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement
Daily Kos: John McCain is worried House Republicans are making the entire Republican Party look bad
How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street | The Ticket - Yahoo! News
Christian theocracy: How Newt Gingrich and the GOP would abolish courts and legislate morality. - Slate Magazine
The Other Problem With Perry's 'Oops' Moment - NYTimes.com
How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich | Politics News | Rolling Stone
Iowa Poll: Many think Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would help them | Iowa Caucuses
Senator Gretchen Whitmer Responds to Pro-Bullying Legislation - YouTube
memeorandum: Boehner: Debt deal will include new tax revenues (Nancy Cordes/CBS News)
Jon Stewart On GOP Reaction To Gaddafi's Death: 'What The F*ck Is Wrong With You?' (Alex Alvarez/Mediaite)
GOP Rep. Asked Paper To Keep Town Hall Secret, Selected Residents Who Were Invited (Alex Seitz-Wald/ThinkProgress)
Republicans lay groundwork for healthcare repeal (Noam N. Levey/Los Angeles Times)
No GOP Senator Supports Bill to Protect Cloud E-Mail Privacy