This is pretty bizarre. For those of you who can't play video, it is an ad from the National Repubican Senatorial Committee. The thrust of it can be summed up from this narration within the ad: "It might not always seem like it, but we say yes a lot. We say yes on jobs for you. On opportunity. We … Read More
House Republicans Will Vote Tomorrow — For The 43rd Time — To Unsuccessfully Repeal Obamacare
They know it is an exercise in futility, because even if (for some reason) the House Republicans manage to pass a vote to repeal Obamacare, the Senate won't take it up OR pass it, and even if THAT happened, Obama will never sign the repeal into law. So it's a symbolic thing. That's okay. Symbolism has its place. But this … Read More
Benghazi Joke Continues
Yesterday's jokester was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Cal), who is heading up the Committee To Get To The Bottom of Benghazi Dammit Because We Know Something Is Being Covered Up But We Don't Know What But It's Impeachable That's Fer Darn Sure Dammit. In fact, Issa gave us two yucks yesterday. First he said, on Fox News, this (starting at 0:59): … Read More
Yes, This Is An Actual Scandal
WaPo: At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general. The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from … Read More
Benghazi Debunked
A nice summary from Think Progress of scandals-that-aren't: 1. F-16s could have been sent to Benghazi Part of the prevailing theory surrounding the events the night of the Benghazi attacks is that the Obama administration did not do enough militarily to respond to the crisis. Gregory Hicks — a Foreign Service Officer and the former Deputy Chief of Mission at … Read More
Why Benghazi Isn’t, And Never Will Be, A Scandal
Balloon Juice nails it: Here’s the one thing I don’t get about the whole Benghazi Snark hunt: fucking up a government job, and trying to paper it over, is not now and has never been the basis of a scandal. The formula for a scandal is simple: crime + cover-up = scandal: Watergate was a scandal because Nixon authorized a … Read More
Why The Background Check Bill Failed
Ezra Klein nails it: The gun vote didn’t fail because a couple of red-state Democrats bolted, or even because too many senators are afraid of the National Rifle Association, or even because Sen. Pat Toomey couldn’t bring along more Republicans. Those factors help explain why the gun vote didn’t clear the extraordinary bar set for it to succeed. But they’re not … Read More
Bachmann’s Ethic Troubles Get Worse
Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) participated in a press conference about Medicaid reimbursement, but reporters had some questions about the right-wing congresswoman's ethics troubles. Instead of responding, Bachmann literally ran away, while some aides "physically blocked reporters" to keep them at bay, and other aides were seen "pushing reporters out of the way as Bachmann left the room." It … Read More
What The Texas Explosion Reveals
I was reading an analysis of last night's fertilizer explosion in West, Texas, and came upon this paragraph: This explosion is nothing at all like what happened in Oklahoma City back in 1995. That was a mixture of ammonium nitrate, a dry solid, and diesel fuel. Ammonium nitrate is made from ammonia, but the United States banned it after that … Read More
Not Following Reibus’s Advice
Just a week ago, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was talking to Politico about how his party "has divorced itself from the American culture," and he hopes to change that. Priebus specifically talked about the pointless rhetorical shots at President Obama who does care about the culture: "[We] would make fun of the president for going on 'The View' — and you've heard me … Read More
Rand Gets His Answer
You have to appreciate the opening line: "It has come to my attention….." So here's the breakdown: Rand Paul asks “whether the president has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a US citizen on US soil.” Holder responds "It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary … Read More
More On Scalia And The Voting Rights Act
From TPM: In expressing his deep skepticism Wednesday for the constitutionality of a centerpiece of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Antonin Scalia questioned the motivations of Congress for repeatedly reauthorizing it since it was initially passed in 1965. “I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act,” Scalia said during oral arguments in Shelby … Read More
Congress: Better Than Ebola, Worse Than Cockroaches and Nickelback
From PPP: Our newest national poll finds that Congress only has a 9% favorability rating with 85% of voters viewing it in a negative light. We've seen poll after poll after poll over the last year talking about how unpopular Congress is but really, what's the difference between an 11% or a 9% or a 7% favorability rating? So we … Read More
Goodbye, 112th Congress
Ezra Klein really takes it to the just-ended 112th Congress, saying it deserves the worst-Congress-ever moniker: What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget … Read More
Bills Blocked By Republicans in 2012
1. A minimum wage increase. House Democrats proposed legislation in June that would have raised the national minimum wage to $10 an hour, but Republicans blocked it. The minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, even though it would need to be raised to $9.92 to match the borrowing power it had in 1968. If it was indexed to inflation, it would … Read More