Republicans have settled on a strategy for extending the Bush tax cuts that seems counterintuitive and destructive to the economy: Revive the debt ceiling battle. John Boehner tossed the first salvo this week when he held a press conference to declare that there would be no further increases in the debt ceiling without one-for-one spending cuts. This is his declaration after he also declared that the triggers in the last "deal" weren't ones he was willing to abide by. In other words, he will renege on the deal made last summer in order to try and kill Social Security and Medicare.

Mitch McConnell played that card in his interview with Bob Schieffer this morning where he dropped a few bombs into the dialogue. He begins with his usual snide comments about how President Obama "needs to act like an adult", which is nothing other than code for calling the President to heel to Republicans' demands. And what are those demands?

McConnell told host Bob Schieffer that the president has had three-and-a-half years to tackle the deficit, but "we could not get this president to do anything serious about entitlement reform, for example, the single biggest threat to future generations."

This is, of course, untrue, but McConnell doesn't stop with that generalization. No, he elaborates, saying that US national debt exceeds the US economy, which "makes us like Greece." Not so much, Senator McConnell.

Here are some questions Bob Schieffer should have asked and didn't:

1. Why are Republicans intent on cutting Medicare and Social Security when the bulk of our national debt is the result of Bush tax cuts?
2. Why are Republicans ignoring the FACT that federal spending and the deficit are lower today than they were at the end of the Bush administration?
3. Why is Republicans' word worthless? They agreed to the "deal" made at the last debt ceiling raise, and they're reneging. Who's the adult again?

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It's been coming from all sides as if it's a settled fact, so it's interesting that Leon Panetta says Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons:

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta let slip on Sunday the big open secret that Washington war hawks don’t want widely known: Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Panetta admitted that despite all the rhetoric, Iran is not pursuing the ability to split atoms with weapons, saying it is instead pursuing “a nuclear capability.”

That “capability” falls in line with what Iran has said for years: that it is developing nuclear energy facilities, not nuclear weapons.

“I think the pressure of the sanctions, the diplomatic pressures from everywhere, Europe, the United States, elsewhere, it’s working to put pressure on them,” Panetta explained on Sunday. “To make them understand that they cannot continue to do what they’re doing. Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability, and that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is, do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.”

Republicans have been beating the drums of war in recent weeks as tensions in the Iranian gulf have soared. Iran has threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil transport hub crucial to global industry, if U.S. warships return to monitor their activities.

Iran said it was planning to hold military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz in the coming weeks, and prior wargames saw the Iranians test missiles that are designed to sink warships.

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Our number four most viewed C&L video for 2011 comes courtesy of Dave Neiwert with serial liar Michele Bachmann making an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation, piling lies upon more lies. From back in June before PolitiFact decided to make a complete mockery of themselves.

Bachmann's response to her twenty some plus "pants on fire" lies... Obama lies too!!! Pay no attention to anything I've said.

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You would think that someone who has been working in politics since 1968 would have some idea how government works and the constitutional separation of powers, but then again, Newt Gingrich has never considered himself lowly enough to such pedantic details. And it true "up-is-down" Orwellian fashion, he has such a carefully crafted rationalization that he is the only one that can protect us from the constitutional crisis that judges upholding the First Amendment pose.

I'm beginning to believe that "conservative" is an inadequate label in which to apply to the Newtster. Listening to him talk to Bob Schieffer, I believe the more accurate description of him is "anarcho-fascist" in all its paradoxical glory:

There’s “no reason the American people need to tolerate a judge that out of touch with American culture,” Gingrich said on CBS’ Face the Nation, referring to a case where a judge ruled that explicit references to religion were barred from a high school graduation ceremony. And Gingrich recently has said judges should have to explain some of their decisions before Congress.

Host Bob Schieffer asked Gingrich how he planned to enforce that. Would you call in the Capitol Police to apprehend a federal judge, he asked.

“If you had to,” Gingrich said. “Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send the U.S. Marshall in.”

A judge should have to explain his or her radical decisions, Gingrich emphasized again. Gingrich’s tough words against the judiciary branch have drawn fire from even conservatives. Former attorney general under President George W. Bush, Michael Mukasey, told Fox News that Gingrich’s proposals were “dangerous” and “totally irresponsible.”

By the way, that Judge Biery that has Newtie's knickers in a bunch? He has been an ongoing rallying cry for Gingrich (whose personal "deep" religious convictions did not prevent him from breaking two or three juicy commandments, mind you) because he ruled that the school district governing Medina Valley High School outside San Antonio, Texas, could not include a benediction or prayer as part of their graduation ceremony. Damn that separation of Church and State clause. It really doesn't signify that Biery specifically said that individual students were not prohibited from praying or referencing God; that's much too nuanced for those right-wingers desperate for proof of Christian persecution in this country. In this particular case, the ruling was swiftly overturned and the invocation and benediction went on as planned at Medina Valley High. The self-described 'agnostic' student who filed the lawsuit bypassed the ceremony. Texas's status as a backwater, Constitution-ignoring, Christofascist community is intact. But Newt is still gunning for that judge, calling for his arrest and impeachment.

I agree with Gingrich that we have some seriously disturbing activist judges on the court. Unfortunately, I think we differ greatly on what constitutes activism. Citizen's United? Activist. Telling a school district that an official prayer signifies an official sanction of a specific religion but individual students can exercise their faith as they see fit? That's not radical, that's what our Founding Fathers advocated.

Too bad The Historian isn't able to distinguish that.

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Michele Bachmann had to have the most interesting campaign promise of any of the Republican candidates to date: The same woman who has never passed a single bill in her tenure in congress is telling audiences that President Bachmann will make sure Americans are paying less than $2 per gallon for gasoline.

“Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again,” Bachmann told a crowd Tuesday in South Carolina. “That will happen.” “The day that the president became president gasoline was $1.79 a gallon,” Bachmann said. “Look what it is today.”[..]

Let’s first take a look at the basic claim. I have seen many people repeat her claim that gasoline was $1.79 per gallon when Obama took office, but I haven’t seen anyone fact check it. So I went to the EIA statistics, and found that the week before Obama took office (his inauguration was on Tuesday, January 20, 2009), overall retail gasoline averaged $1.90 per gallon. The week of his inauguration retail gasoline averaged $1.89 per gallon. So, there was some slight context possibly needed to qualify the $1.79 per gallon remark (probably somewhere gasoline averaged that price) but the general claim is basically correct: Prices were much lower when Obama took office, and now the current price of gasoline is $3.66 per gallon.

Just for fun — and before we examine the claim in more detail — I decided to check and see what gas prices were when Bush took office. When he first took office on January 20, 2001, gasoline prices averaged $1.51 a gallon. At the beginning of his second term in 2005, gasoline prices averaged $1.90. When Bush left office, gasoline prices averaged $1.90. However, as we know gasoline prices were hardly stable in between. During Bush’s second term — in the summer of 2008 — gasoline ran up to over $4 per gallon. The price remained at that level for almost two months before a recession brought the economy crashing down — and gasoline prices along with it.

But most families don’t fill up for the entire year on a specific day, so a snapshot of prices on inauguration day isn’t really that meaningful. Let’s consider average annual gas prices over the past few years. Beginning in 2002, each subsequent year of Bush’s administration saw higher average annual gas prices than the previous year. For six years in a row — from 2003 through 2008 — gas prices rose. Prices crossed the $2 per gallon mark in 2004 and ultimately rose to an annual average of $3.30 per gallon in 2008, Bush’s last full year in office. And the only reason gasoline prices weren’t higher than $3.30 per gallon was due to the recession-induced price collapse in the price of oil in the second half of 2008.

Beyond the fundamental idiocy of the construct, how exactly does President Bachmann think she'll achieve this particular sparkle pony? By taking an "All Of The Above" approach to energy policy, naturally.

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Bob Schieffer interviewed Rep. Michele Bachmann on Face The Nation yesterday and actually tried to pin her down on her many and numerous outright lies, as PolitiFact recently examined in some detail.

And as usual, she did her usual blob-of-mercury routine:

SCHIEFFER: I want to ask you about something else. A lot of your critics say you have been very fast and loose with the truth. You know, the po-- PolitiFact, which is a website that won a Pulitzer, did an analysis of twenty-three statements that you made recently. Of these twenty-three, only one they said was completely true. Seven they call pants on fire kind of falsehoods. Four were barely true and two were half truths. How do you answer that criticism? Because here’s one of them, you know, you said on the record there had been only one offshore oil drilling permit during the Obama administration and, in fact at that time they had been two hundred and seventy. How do you explain that?

BACHMANN: Well, you know, I think that what is clear more than anything is the fact that President Obama does -- has not been issuing the permits, that he should have been issuing on offshore drilling that’s--

SCHIEFFER: Well, it’s more than three hundred now.

BACHMANN: Well --

SCHIEFFER: At-- at that time there had been two hundred and something. And you said there had been only one.

BACHMANN: But as far as drilling goes, we hadn’t been drilling what we need to-- that’s why we just this week--

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): But that’s different, isn’t it?

BACHMANN: Well, that’s why this week it’s-- it’s ironic and sad that the President released all of the oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve because the President doesn’t have an energy policy.

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Do you think that was a good move?

BACHMANN: He has a politically correct environmental policy.

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Was that a good thing?

BACHMANN: It was a very bad move. It put-- it has made the United States more vulnerable. There’s only a limited amount of oil that we have in the Strategic Oil Reserve. It’s there for emergencies. We do not-- the emergency that we have is the fact that -- the fact that-- the President of the United States has failed to give the American people an energy policy. Here’s the good news that a lot of Americans don’t even realize. We are the number one energy resource rich nation in the world according to the Congressional Research Service. But the President of the United States has unfortunately put American energy resources off limits.

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Did--

BACHMANN: We need to open those up so we can bring down the price of gasoline at the pump. The President has it exactly wrong when it comes to energy.

SCHIEFFER Just quickly though, the-- the original question I asked you is all of these statements that you have made that have later proven to be sort of true or-- or totally false in some cases, what is your answer when people say that to you? Do you feel you have misled people?

BACHMANN: No, I haven’t misled people at all. I think the question would be asked of President Obama. When you told the American people that if we borrow a trillion dollars from other countries and spend it on a stimulus that we won’t have unemployment go above eight percent and today as we are sitting here, it’s 9.1 percent and the economy is tanking. That is what’s serious. That’s a very serious statement that the President made. Did he mislead the American people? Not only did he mislead the American people, he’s caused our economy to go down to--

SCHIEFFER (overlapping): All right.

BACHMANN: --depths that we haven’t seen. That’s what’s serious.

SCHIEFFER: Again, I have to say congresswoman, I asked you a question and you-- you, to my knowledge I don’t believe you answered it, but I want to thank you.

Indeed, Bachmann simply would not answer any of Schieffer's points about her mounting record of falsehoods, trying instead to "pivot" the interview and make it about Obama's supposed misleading statements. It's like trying to talk to a trained robot, programmed never to admit to anything like lying -- so of course, it lies in order to do so.

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It's rare on the Sunday shows to give a Democrat uninterrupted air time and even rarer still the chance to respond to a Republican's segment on earlier. Watch the shows, most of the time Democrats appear with a Republican at his/her side and almost never given the last word. Which is why Chuck Schumer appearing after Mitch McConnell to refute all the same tired talking points is such a novel experience.

Schumer says EXACTLY what every Democrat should say the minute a camera is pointed in their direction: "Hey GOP, where are the jobs???" In the five months of the Republican majority, we've had nary a single jobs bill, but bills reducing regulations on corporations and increasing them on women seeking reproductive health. But that's not what Americans wanted...the Republicans promised jobs and that's what Americans are looking for.

The New York Democrat said his colleagues in the Senate would be introducing a number of measures aimed at creating jobs - including one that provides tax breaks to companies that hire new workers.

"That is aimed at sort of bringing our Republican colleagues along to do something" about the struggling U.S. economy, which created just 54,000 jobs in May, Schumer said on CBS News' "Face the Nation."

"If they are against a business tax cut to help employment, they have always been for business tax cuts in the past, you gotta wonder, maybe they don't want the economy to grow," said Schumer, the number three Democrat in the Senate.

Listen to Bob Schieffer, still holding onto those Republican talking points that the MOST important issue facing us is the blasted deficit, absolutely incredulous of the Democrats plan of investing in the infrastructure, of a strong jobs program, calling it "grandiose". Um...Bob, how would you have characterized the New Deal that Roosevelt proposed? That's exactly what the country needed to put the economy back on track. The Democrats' plan is not nearly that extensive, and in a hat tip to the whiny, petulant Republicans, includes tax breaks.

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Here are the truest words you'll ever hear on this or any Sunday news show, courtesy of Bob Schieffer at Face the Nation: Washington DC is just like high school.

Just think about this:

Distractions such as vanity and the mania for gossip and the short attention span that prevents focusing on problems even long enough to try to understand them.

Unbridled meanness toward those who are not part of your crowd. The cliquishness that requires group think - if you don't believe exactly what we believe you can't be part of our crowd. We're right, you're always wrong, and don't confuse us with facts.

An inability to act for fear it will cause a loss of popularity.

Oh, and did I miss old-fashioned jealousy and insecurity, which seems to be a factor no matter the issue.

For those of us who follow politics and reportage in Washington DC, there is no truer statement. You have the kewl kids and the outsiders, and those kewl kids make sure that the outsiders know that they'll never be welcome into the inner circles until they conform to the group. That's why liberal Barbara Boxer stumped for Republican kissyface Joe Lieberman, and the Democrats let him keep his caucus chairmanships despite his campaign support for Republican John McCain. It's why the Debbie Wasserman Schultz won the DNC Chair despite protecting her Republican colleagues in South Florida from having serious electoral challengers. It's why John McCain is on every Sunday show and nobody ever cares that Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dana Milbank, Mark Halperin, Liz Cheney and Peggy Noonan are rarely correct in their assessments, but you rarely if ever find Rachel Maddow, Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich or Markos Moulitsas, who are correct more often than not. And don't even get me started on the fact you never see bloggers who have consistently been right, like Digby or our own Amato and Neiwert. We're not the kewl kids and being on the inside of the closed campus of DC High is more important that being informative, correct, analytical or in touch with reality.

That's why the cute jock can be called "courageous" and "brave" for putting together a report that gets an "F" from the rest of the country. And why lying about a sexual indiscretion (without actual sex) to the media is worse than lying to the same media about weapons of mass destruction or not coming clean to the same media about hundreds of thousands of dollars of income from a conflict of interest. The kewl kids decide what transgressions are acceptable and what are not, and it's strictly based on your position in the social hierarchy they rule.

So a rare moment of honesty comes out from this long time stalwart of the high school upper echelon. And then he flips right back into his role as decider of kewl, and casts out Anthony Weiner. Not only that, he declares that anyone still supporting Weiner (who has, as of this writing, not done anything illegal, not been charged with anything and certainly has not been found guilty of anything other than a serious lapse of judgment and sense) is threatening their standing in the high school hierarchy. Try as I might, I found nothing on Lexis Nexus where Bob Schieffer did anything similar to the Republicans when they gave David Vitter a standing ovation on the floor of Congress (the same floor from where he had made dates with prostitutes--an illegal activity--several times before).

I guess being consistent isn't as important as being "in" at DC High.

Nicole Belle did a nice write up of Newt's appearance on CBS yesterday called Newt Gingrich: I'm Debt-Free and Frugal! No, Really!, but I wanted to add a little more to this saga. Newt Gingrich appeared on Face the Nation and continued to lie about his "right wing social engineering" quote about Paul Ryan's Medicare plan for America. Bob Schieffer pretty much lays out a week in review to Newt about the harsh criticisms that he took from Republicans for his Meet The Press interview last Sunday: Here's the full transcript and you tell me if he's acting like a Liar:

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): You heard at the top of this broadcast, we kind of laid it out
there. You began your campaign last week on Meet The Press with what I have to say was just
withering criticism of the plan passed by the Republican House to replace Medicare with
government subsidized private insurance and-- and you heard them. You’ve heard them all
week. Republicans from Rush Limbaugh to Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina to Paul
Ryan himself cried foul. Then you backed off and said you made a mistake. But you sounded
pretty certain. And I just want to go back and-- and let’s listen to what you said--

NEWT GINGRICH (May 9, 2011): I don’t think right wing social engineering is anymore
desirable than left wing social engineering. I don’t think imposing radical change from the right
or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.

DAVID GREGORY (May 9, 2011): Do you think that Republicans ought to buck the public
opposition and really move forward to completely change Medicare, turn it into a voucher
program where you give seniors--

NEWT GINGRICH (overlapping; May 9, 2011): Yeah.

DAVID GREGORY (May 9, 2011): --some premium support and so that they can go out and buy
private insurance?

NEWT GINGRICH (May 9, 2011): I don’t think right wing social engineering is anymore
desirable than left wing social engineering. I don’t think imposing radical change from the right
or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate

BOB SCHIEFFER: So then, you go on television and you just totally retract that. You said I’ve
made a mistake. Well, you sounded awfully certain when you said it. What happened here?

NEWT GINGRICH: Look if-- if you go back and replay what David Gregory asked.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, I did.

NEWT GINGRICH: Yeah. No, I’m just saying. If you listen to his words, he doesn’t say how do
you feel about Paul Ryan? I like Paul Ryan. Didn’t even say how do you feel about Ryan’s
budget? I would have voted for Ryan’s budget. He said should Republicans pass an unpopular
plan? And I made the mistake of accepting his premise. I wasn’t referring to Ryan. I was
referring to a general principle. We, the people, should not have Washington impose large-scale
change on us. Paul Ryan has begun a process-- he and I’ve talked about it several times this
week. And we go back many years. Paul Ryan has begun a process. It’s an important process.
This is the third time we’ve seen a Medi-scare campaign by the Democrats against Reagan
and--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well--

NEWT GINGRICH (overlapping): --now just listen-- but--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): --go ahead.

NEWT GINGRICH (overlapping): --but-- my context was we Republicans have to go to the
country, we have to explain what we’re trying to accomplish to save Medicare, how we would
save Medicare. The country has to have time, the American people have to have time to ask us
questions, to modify the plan if necessary, to get to a point where people are comfortable with it
and that was my point. I-- I probably used unfortunate language about social engineering. But
my point was really a larger one that neither party should impose on the American people
something that they are deeply opposed to.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well-- well, do you think Republicans ought to run with the Paul Ryan plan? I
mean is it good social--

NEWT GINGRICH: --there was not a question as good social engineering. The question is I
believe Republicans should start with the Ryan plan, should go to the country and explain it. But
should listen to the American people and where necessary modify it. I think this is what Paul
Ryan believes. It’s not going to be a-- a yes or no. This is the-- and this is what’s sad about
what’s happening. This is the beginning of a profound conversation about a fiscal crisis that is
going to crush this country.

Only in Republican bizarre-o-land could a Conservative like Newt try to get away with distorting his own well thought out response to a David Gregory interview. He's clearly talking about Paul Ryan, but the litmus test for Republicans is just too strong for him. I have to admit it's kind of fun watching him squirm like this. It couldn't happen to a bigger hypocrite.

Grampy "Bomb, bomb, bomb..." McSame is at it again:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday criticized President Obama for taking a "backseat role" in Libya, and said it was time for the United States to get "back in the fight."

In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," McCain argued that Mr. Obama had "withdrawn" from NATO in its actions against Libya, and that NATO forces were subsequently weakened and inadequately supplied.

"I would like to remind you that NATO is an organization of 28 countries," McCain told CBS' Bob Schieffer. "With Italy there's now seven of them actually in the fight. They don't have the assets that the United States of America does. ...the United States is NATO. So the British and the French - God bless them and others - they don't have the assets. They are running out of some of their munitions.

"We need to get back into the fight," McCain urged. "We should be leading. We should not be following."

McCain warned against allowing the conflict to end in a stalemate, an outcome he characterized as "very bad," and which he said would "open the door to al Qaeda."

"It's events on the ground that will drive Qaddafi's desire to leave or not to leave," McCain said. "Right now in many respects he's not doing too badly for a third-rate military power."And while the senator emphasized his opposition to employing ground troops in the Libyan conflict, McCain said the U.S. had to "get its assets back into the air fight" and elsewhere.

*Sigh* Notwithstanding my deep, deep disgust that Mr. Perpetual Guest is given another chance to parade his sour grapes undermining of the president on the Sunday show circuit, the question that begs to be posed is if there is any conflict that he wouldn't break out the pom poms for? Sweet flying spaghetti monster, when deficit spending is on the tongue of every member of the GOP and their enabling buddies in the media, what we need to now is add yet another front in the Middle East to prove our unapologetic imperialism? Of course, the cynic in me thinks that had Obama chose the path McCain advocates (even though it's a violation of international law, something McCain is frightfully ignorant of--a trait you don't want to see in the almost POTUS), that he would find himself doing a 180 flip flop to complain about Obama's imperialism.

What is interesting to me is the inconsistency McCain applies to dealing with Syria. He raises the great fear-mongering bogeyman of al Qaeda in Lebanon to justify increased military air presence (despite that pesky Shia/Sunni/Hezbollah conflict making it doubtful), but ignores that Syria has become, by all intelligence reports, a true haven for al Qaeda. Of course, host Bob Schieffer sees no point in asking such questions on consistency and lawfulness.