DOWNLOADS: (8972)

PLAYS: (1071)

Embed

As Amato noted, last night the House Republican leadership staged a bastardized debt-ceiling “vote” to set up a silly political trap for the Democratic Party. The whole thing was a blatant hoax making the House Republicans look like bunch of “intemperate children.” Today Speaker John Boehner continued his dog and pony show by rolling out a letter signed by "more than 150 economists" who agree that "An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms...will harm private-sector job creation in America."

Sounds very “serious.” Doesn’t it? Except not so much. As Matt Finkelstein from Political Correction notes the signees feature right-wing hacks, bitter partisan dead-enders, and number of characters affiliated with Koch Brothers. Highlights from some of these characters include:

Benjamin Zycher: Michelle Obama Is The Product Of "Affirmative-Action Coddling" And "An Intellectual Lightweight." In a post on National Review's blog The Corner, Zycher wrote: "Now, let me be blunt: Michelle Obama, the product of lifelong affirmative-action coddling, is an intellectual lightweight who fancies herself a serious thinker. Just read her Princeton senior thesis, an intermittently coherent stream-of-consciousness pile of leftist jargon, campus pseudo-seriousness, and racial-identity babble. Can there be any doubt that the Princeton administrators accepted it only because of her skin color?" [National Review, 8/17/09]

Thomas C. Rustici: "In November We Will Kick Your Asses Out And Save This Republic From Your Socialistic Tyranny." Speaking at a Tea Party rally, Rustici said: "I swear on my life, with God as my witness, we are going to hold them to account for this disaster. If you're a politician and disrespect the Constitution, individual liberty, and the American people; heed my words: this, I swear before God almighty right here right now, we're coming after you. In November we will kick your asses out and save this Republic from your socialist tyranny." [TomRustici.Angelfire.com, 4/10/10]

John Cogan: "It's Wrong To Allow Surpluses." According to the New York Times: "John F. Cogan, a Hoover fellow, was a top official in the Office of Management and Budget in the Reagan and first Bush administrations and probably could have been the current president's budget director if he had wanted the job. He put the case this way: 'It is wrong to allow surpluses because these surpluses invariably lead to higher spending. Governments simply cannot hang onto money.'" [New York Times, 2/9/03]

Bill Scher from Campaign for America’s Future has more on Boehner’s stars:

There's Larry Lindsey, President George W. Bush's first director of the National Economic Council. Lindsey advocated for the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy as an "insurance policy" against recession.

As you may recall, we had a bit of a recession during the Bush years, which produced the worst record on job creation in modern history.

There's Kevin Hassett, co-author of the 1999 classic book "Dow 36,000." Hassett made a public bet that the Dow would be closer to 36,000 than 10,000 by the year 2010. Yet, the Dow was at 10,000 in 2010.

And there's Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. The McCain campaign's response to the financial crisis was to suspend the campaign, arrange for a bipartisan meeting with the President, and then proceed to say nothing at the meeting.

As Finkelstein concluded:

Furthermore, 24 of the economists who signed both letters also signed a 2003 letter endorsing the Bush tax cuts as a "fiscally responsible" path to "more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans." As it turns out, the Bush tax cuts were a fiscal nightmare that fueled massive deficits, a decline in average household incomes, and the slowest period of economic growth since World War II.

The question is whether Democrats will take these characters seriously and consider them as rational actors, who will actually come to the table in good faith. One thing Democrats cannot afford right now is to agree to cuts to Medicare benefits by getting psyched out by the House Republicans’ dog and pony show. Let’s hope they stand strong and tell these clowns to take a hike.

DOWNLOADS: (5767)

PLAYS: (14664)

Embed

[Editor's note: We're delighted to welcome our old friend Murshed Zaheed to the C&L team. It's a name many of our readers will be familiar with, since we've cited him many times. He recently served as Director of Strategic Communications at Media Matters For America. Before MM, Murshed served as the Director of New Media for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Murshed also has worked in a number of political campaigns, including his time as a key member of Governor Howard Dean's Presidential Campaign's online and fund-raising team that revolutionized today’s political campaigns. Murshed currently works as a senior progressive Democratic strategist in D.C. We know you'll enjoy his work. -- DN]

First of all I want to say thanks to John Amato and his amazing C&L crew for giving me the wonderful opportunity to write at one of the premier progressive media outlets in America. I will chime in here every now and then based on my experience in the campaign, legislative and progressive online world on matters related to our village media culture and a crazy Republican party, which is now being led by bunch of fringe extremists. So, on that note, I wanted to zero in on a really ugly week for House Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner and his handlers thought they were going to set a smooth narrative around their crazy economic agenda in the DC/ NY traditional media bubble this week by scheduling a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Monday. Let’s just say things didn’t go too hot for Speaker Boehner. Let's start with the tenacious researchers from Media Matters Action Network. They basically took his pants down by exposing his bundle of lies. There were so many falsehoods in Boehner’s speech that MMAN crew had put together a glossary style table of content. Read the entire piece here.

Before anyone starts attacking the messenger by barking out tired and stale George Soros line to attack that MMAN link, let me just take you over to this brutal piece from Bloomberg just eviscerating “Boehner’s views on economy” by pointing out all the contradictions (Bloomberg folks are exceedingly polite, we can use the word “debunking”) from leading market indicators and government reports. It gets worse for the Speaker.

Continue reading »

Mother Jones:

To gin up support for off-shore drilling, the Right has an ace up its rhetorical sleeve: the Chinese in Cuba. Here's Vice President Cheney.

"[O]il is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We're not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government... Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply. Yet Congress has said... no to drilling off Florida.''

"Even the communists" is a nice flourish. Mix the red scare with the yellow scare and get Uncle Dick's own Orange Scare. Guaranteed to freak out Americans concerned about their energy security. Here's House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), piling on:

"Even China recognizes that oil and natural gas is readily available off our shores; thanks to Fidel Castro, they've been given a permit to drill for oil 45 miles from the Florida Keys."

Adds House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), "Right at this moment, some 60 miles or less off the coast of Key West, Florida, China has the green light to drill for oil in order to lower energy costs in that country."
Problem is, that's all false. Like, completely false. China is not currently drilling off the shores of Cuba; in fact, it doesn't even have a off shore drilling contract. What is does have is a permit to drill on Cuban land. "China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period,'' Jorge Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy, told the Miami Herald. In fact, it is not yet drilling on Cuban land, either.

That's what happens when you lose three for three critical races in what used to be "safe" Republican districts, Sparky.

HuffPo:

Frustration among the House Republicans with Minority Leader John Boehner is apparently so great that some members are already considering a challenge.

As the Republicans lost their third special election in a row on Tuesday -- a feat not seen in 30 years -- Chuck Todd reported on MSNBC:

It is a seismic sort of shift, and sort of think of what you're gonna see the Republican Caucus... I have already been hearing whisper campaigns about John Boehner, the Republican leader, people are thinking about challenging him. Is he not being strident enough? You've got all sort of back biting and in-fighting. It is not a good night in the House Republican Caucus.

Ah, but it was a great night for the rest of us.

Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-N.J.) Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act seemed like the kind of bill that should sail through Congress. The legislation would help local governments pay for paper trails and audits for electronic voting machines, adding safeguards to potential recounts and a layer of integrity to the election process.

Indeed, Holt’s bill was so obviously worthwhile, when it came for a vote in the House Administration Committee a few weeks ago, even House Republicans voted for it — unanimously.

It was a very encouraging development. Five years ago, Holt nearly passed a similar bill, before it was blocked by far-right lawmakers. That the bill cleared committee unanimously suggested the elections in 2008 would not be marred by some of the problems we’ve seen in recent cycles. Finally, something everyone could agree on.

Or not.

[T]wo weeks later, those same Republican members voted against moving the bill to the House floor. It would have taken a two-thirds vote to push the bill to the floor; with most House Republicans opposed, the bill didn’t make it that far. [...]

The result: The elections in November will likely be marred by the same accusations of fraud and error involving voting machines that arose in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential race.

And we'll know who tried to help -- and who got in the way.

As a rule, Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, has generally been considered a “team player” in his party. He hasn’t always been quite as conservative as some of his rank-and-file colleagues, but on the big issues, Davis has always stood toe to toe with his Republican caucus. It’s why he was rewarded a few cycles ago with the chairmanship of the NRCC.

Davis was preparing a Senate run, right up until he realized he’d lose to former Gov. Mark Warner (D), and he’s now preparing to leave elected office altogether. Apparently, it’s had a liberating effect.

A few days ago, Davis acknowledged, “The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf.”

Then he went a little further in describing his party’s troubles.

“It’s no mystery,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). “You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He’s just killed the Republican brand.”

I mention this, not only because it’s an interesting quote, but because I wonder how many Republicans who aren’t retiring from Congress feel the exact same way.

My hunch is, quite a few.

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf," said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.)

When it comes to the nation’s finances, Republicans in Washington have shown, shall we say, a certain lackadaisical attitude. Deficits, debts, expensive tax giveaways, lax regulations on the financial industry, Enron-omics — when it comes to looking after our money, GOP officials don’t exactly inspire confidence.

But what about when they’re tasked with looking after their own money? Well, it’s a funny story, actually.

The accounting scandal now haunting the National Republican Congressional Committee was preceded by a series of decisions over the past decade to relax internal financial controls at the committee, according to numerous Republican sources familiar with the NRCC’s operations during those years.

Under Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who chaired the committee from 1999 until the end of 2006, the NRCC waived rules requiring the executive committee — made up of elected leaders and rank-and-file Republican lawmakers — to sign off on expenditures exceeding $10,000, merged the various department budgets into a single account and rolled back a prohibition on committee staff earning an income from outside companies.

And wouldn’t you know it, the lack of oversight led to abuse — and apparent felonies.

As Josh Patashnik concluded, “House Republicans can be accused of many things, but at least inconsistency isn’t one of them: They adhere to the same low standards of ethics and competence in their own affairs that they expect of the federal government as a whole.”

Washington Post:

Add yet another name to the GOP retirement list. Arizona Rep. John Shadegg (R) is on the verge of announcing that he will not run for re-election, according to Republican sources.

Shadegg is in his 7th term in the House and is the former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. He served briefly as House GOP Policy Chairman and then lost a bid for House Majority Leader in 2006.

Shadegg will be the 22nd House Republican to announce his retirement this cycle. Another three GOP lawmakers are running for other offices. Read on...

This makes 29 Republicans jumping ship so far, and it's a safe bet Shadegg won't be the last to go. This is great news for Democrat Bob Lord who is running for Shadegg's seat. Please go to Lord's website and show him some love. You can read Rep. Shadegg's full statement here.

We all know about the troubles facing congressional Republicans. But never mind all of that, the party says. Now, they’ve crafted a comeback plan.

Confronting a dire outlook for next year’s elections, House Republicans have begun to fight back with a new three-pronged strategy: painting the new Democratic majority as part of an unpopular Washington status quo, forcing Democrats to make unpopular votes on tough issues and locking arms around a new GOP issues agenda. […]

Brian Kennedy, communications director for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said the GOP plans to portray its opponents as “the same old tax-and-spend Democratic Party people remember from the 1970s.”

That’s it? Wedge issues and “tax and spend”?

Republicans, in other words, plan to do exactly what they’ve been doing for the better part of my lifetime. This isn’t a “three-pronged strategy,” so much as it’s “the only play in the playbook.”