I have to admit, I'm not used to reporters calling politicians out on their lies and hypocrisies -- especially Chuck Todd, of all people. Via Think Progress:

On Thursday, NBC’s Chuck Todd challenged Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) claim that the Obama administration has created a “culture of intimidation” in which “everything is about politics and destroying your opponent and dividing the American people for your electoral gain,” pointing out that the Rubio’s own PAC is actively fundraising from the ongoing scandals in Washington.

“Your PAC put out an e-mail raising money on IRS issue and doing a petition,” Todd said. “That’s campaigning. That’s politics too.” Rubio disagreed, saying that his PAC is merely trying to rally the American people against government abuse:

RUBIO: Here’s the point. I’m trying to get a petition of American citizens and Americans who support us in this endeavor to rally people. That’s different to say I’ll put on my website every donor to the Obama campaign and attack that individual, a private citizen by name, and I’m going to try to create this culture where people feel intimidated and oppose me. That’s two different things I’m talking about.

Rubio has also called for the acting IRS commissioner to be fired, introduced legislation creating criminal penalties for IRS officials who engage in political targeting and asked his supporters for money. In the eight days since the story broke, Rubio’s senate office put out seven different press releases about the IRS and he has granted numerous print, radio and TV interviews to discuss the matter.

Because sometimes 100 seconds is all anyone can stand. More insanity to come, I'm sure.

[h/t TPM]

Who knew that seeming double-centenerian Pete Domenici was such a player? None of us, it turns out, until the former longtime Senator of New Mexico recently admitted to an extra-marital affair with a colleague's [Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada] daughter, which produced a now-thirty-something son.

Domenici is certainly not the first politician to suffer from Strom Thurmond Disease. You may remember the late Senator Thurmond, he of the presidential campaign in 1948 based on the segregation of the races - something he couldn't personally accomplish with the hired help in his own household (let's call it an Early Schwarzenegger). Just two weeks ago, at the age of 87, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, his bi-racial child who could not acknowledge her father publicly until his death in 2003, passed away herself. Just another sad story of conservative hypocrisy, and in Thurmond's case, one of many dalliances with women not his wife for the "family values"-spouting, Lost-Cause romantic.

This is not to say this kind of thing doesn't happen on the Democratic/liberal side. (I have two words for you. John and Edwards.) Yet, the difference is that like most Republicans, Domenici was all too concerned what was going on in our private lives if we were gay, a woman, or a President being impeached in the 1990s over an affair. He was a moral exemplar, you see, who was so pristine and pure you'd think he brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain. He could deign to lecture us all, including then President Bill Clinton.

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What no one explains is that this "shut up and sit down" Senate model is based on the not-unreasonable idea that new senators should develop some expertise in their area before they start making waves. But since Warren is one of the nation's leading experts on banking and financial services, it's absolutely silly to expect she wouldn't use her expertise from Day One. And, as Sirota points out, it's a double standard for progressives. Anyone telling Marco Rubio not to make waves? Via Raw Story:

Appearing with “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur on Tuesday, author David Sirota critiqued Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) recent grilling of the nation’s top financial regulators, saying it’s the first evidence we’ve seen that Warren is showing no interest in “the Hillary Clinton model” of sitting down and shutting in hopes of earning the right to be taken seriously.

“What’s un-serious is the notion that a senator shouldn’t ask serious questions about the biggest financial meltdown in contemporary history,” he said.

“When it comes to Democratic senators, what you hear is, ‘Please follow the Hillary Clinton model,’ that’s what it’s basically called,” Sirota said. “Hillary Clinton came in and she had star power and she laid low and didn’t do very much. Same thing for Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate. The expectation, if not the mandate for liberal senators is, only can you be taken seriously if you follow this model that says essentially, sit down and shut up.”

Florida Senator Marco Rubio gave a "Republican Response" to the President's State of the Union address. He said that taxes cause employers to reduce hours or lay people off. Others say that raising the minimum wage will mean layoffs. Let's take a closer look at that.

In Wednesday's post, What Do Republicans, Rubio And Rand Have If They Don’t Have Deficits? I focused on one line from Rubio's speech,

One line of Rubio’s stands out: “Because more government raises taxes on employers who then pass the costs on to their employees through fewer hours, lower pay and even layoffs.”

With this Rubio is trying to scare people who are worried about jobs. Business taxes are on profits. Good businesses employ the right number of people, so a company that is making profits isn’t going to reduce staff or hours. That is simply preposterous to anyone who has ever run a business.

I was in a local CVS store today. There weren't enough employees in the store, and there was a long line of people waiting to pay for items at the only checkout register. There was also a long line of people in line at the pharmacy. I saw a one person give up, leave their nearly-full carrier on a shelf, and just leave the store. I saw another person come in the door, take one look at the line and leave. I left without buying anything and went to a different store -- not a CVS, for what I was looking for.

Was this CVS "saving money" by employing fewer people? Or were they being "penny-wise and pound-foolish" and costing themselves business today as well as in the future?

How many times have you seen this happen at a business that is not employing enough people to "save money?? You are at a business, they don't have enough people working, and people give up and take their business somewhere else?

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Newt Gingrich spilled the beans Sunday on This Week about something we already knew. I've suspected for awhile that immigration reform is an area Republicans have softened on because they want to pimp Marco Rubio as their great Hispanic Hope for 2016. Newt, in his blunt and mean-spirited way, confirmed that suspicion.

Here's Newt spelling it out for anyone who doesn't already have a clue:

KARL: Will a Rubio immigration plan pass the House?

GINGRICH: No, but I think a Rubio -- and -- the House Republicans and House Democrats have been meeting on immigration. I mean I think there will be a House immigration bill that has a very substantial support that Boehner and Cantor and others will be supporting. And I think that negotiated with a Senate immigration bill that has to have bipartisan support could actually get to the president's desk. But an Obama plan led and driven by Obama in this atmosphere with the level of hostility towards the president and the way he goads the hostility I think is very hard to imagine that bill -- that his bill is going to pass the House.

Shorter Newt: Republicans hate the president and would never, ever, ever do anything that he wanted. They will, however, do what Marco Rubio wants.

This is so irritating on so many levels, but it's especially irritating because Jonathan Karl set it up for Gingrich way back at the beginning of this segment when he feigned shock that the White House would dare to work on a plan without Marco Rubio.

KARL: Now, this hit with a thud as far as Marco Rubio is concerned. He said late last night in a statement, quote, "this legislation is half baked and seriously flawed. It would actually make our immigration problems worse. If actually proposed, the president's bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come."

Let's be honest. There is no passing an immigration bill without Marco Rubio. How could the White House be working on a draft without Republican input?

You know what? Screw Marco Rubio and the whole hateful pot of Republicans. Since when is it some kind of a sin for a president to draft his own framework and keep it as Plan B? Truthfully, the point of the draft and the leak was to send a signal to the group working on immigration reform that the president also expects to see certain pieces put together inside of it. But where does a Sunday show host get off making a pronouncement like that?

Just so things are clear here, Marco Rubio won because the people in Florida chose to be oblivious to certain facts about Marco Rubio, including a small issue he had with regard to misappropriating party funds for his own personal use. In some circles that might be called corruption, but because everyone was so enamored of the young teabagger senatorial candidate, they overlooked it. I'm fairly certain it won't be as easily overlooked when it comes to a presidential run, however.

In the meantime, my message to Jonathan Karl is to quit making pronouncements about what the White House should and should not do. Instead he should listen to Newt Gingrich, who is right about one thing: Republicans hate Barack Obama so much they're willing to screw this country over rather than behave like adults and get something done.

As for who "goads the hostility?" All I can say is that I didn't see Democrats at town hall meetings with t-shirts calling for bloodshed to "water the tree of liberty." The King Goader of all time is Newt Gingrich. He's the number one reason our politics is so nasty.

He set the trend with Clinton and taught the rest of them how to take it to a level never, ever seen before in our politics.

Tea Party correspondent Susie Sampson presses the proverbial man (and woman) in the street what they thought about the State of the Union address.

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On Tuesday night, Florida GOP Golden Child Sen. Marco Rubio delivered a pre-written "response" to President Obama's State of the Union address where he bravely knocked down strawman after strawman, criticizing the president for things he didn't say, and for failing to address subjects that he, in fact, did (like "Medicare" and "early education").

During the senator's speech, he made a point of mentioning that he doesn't live among "millionaires" but instead among immigrants, retirees and senior citizens on fixed incomes. One would be forgiven if they came away believing that Senator Rubio lives in the barrio, among some of the poorest people in Miami.

Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren't millionaires. They're retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They're workers who have to get up early and go to work to pay the bills. They're immigrants who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy.

Problem is, Rubio's working class home has been up for sale at the bargain price of more than two thirds of a million dollars as he seeks to move out of that neighborhood to DC.

Hilariously tone deaf as Nicole Wallace and Keith Ellison talk about Marco Rubio:

Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace said Sunday that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is good for the Republican Party because, as one of many attributes, Rubio "knows who Tupac is."

"He's everything we need and more," Wallace, a former aide to President George W. Bush and an adviser on Sen. John McCain's 2008 campaign, said on ABC's "This Week." "He's modern. He knows who Tupac is. He is on social media. "

Apparently to Wallace, having a Twitter account and being able to identify a hip hop artist who died 17 years ago constitutes "modern."

But in any event, it's amusing that Wallace thinks dogmatic Teabagger who thinks George W. Bush was a "fantastic" president is "everything" the GOP needs.

Good luck with that, Nicole!

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Earlier this week, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan were both feted at the Jack Kemp Foundation, and at the banquet, both attempted to distance themselves from the Republican Party's favorite talking point of 2012 -- that the problem with this America is that the freeloading, moocher "takers" outnumber the noble, job-creating "makers."

Bobo, apparently really desperate to find any glimmer of hope these days, highlighted this passage from Rubio's speech.

As he was telling this story, Rubio motioned to some of the service staff at the Kemp dinner. They stopped to listen to him. “It all starts with our people,” Rubio continued. “In the kitchens of our hotels. In the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods. In the late-night janitorial shifts that clean our offices. There you will find the dreams America was built on. There you will find the promise of tomorrow. Their journey is our nation’s destiny. And if they can give their children what our parents gave us, the 21st-century America will be the single greatest nation that man has ever known.”

People at the dinner say that there was a hushed silence for a second as Rubio concluded with this refrain. Then a roaring ovation swelled and filled the room.

The Republican Party has a long way to go before it revives itself as a majority party. But that speech signifies a moment in that revival. And I would say the last month has marked a moment.

Yes, Rubio's failure to label the hotel wait staff a bunch of parasites in their presence is the new "Tear Down This Wall" speech.

But here's the funny part.

The wait staff at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel are union members. And Marco Rubio is one of the most anti-labor lawmakers in Congress.

He's said unions are un-American, sponsored the RAISE Act, which was an assault on collective bargaining and he's received a perfect 100%/A+ score from one of the leading union-busting organizations on the right.

The reality is, Rubio's wants to make it harder for these workers to give their children a better future. He and his party offer them absolutely nothing. Giving them a pat on the head and not calling them leeches hardly marks a new day for the GOP, no matter what Bobo says.