Michele: Still Working The Room

(Editorial cartoon by Steve Sack and published 4/14/13 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Click on image to enlarge and then be so kind as to return.)


Michele is still flashing her shiny keys around, anxious to keep her base focused on Tea Party Business rather than on her pending Ethics Committee investigation and the law suits she's involved in.  There's been all sorts of fact checking done on Bachmann's latest pronouncement, but I thought the one from the Washington Post captured things nicely.

 “So now we find out these people are making decisions based on our politics and beliefs, and they’re going to be in charge of our health care. There’s a huge national database that’s being created right now. Your health care, my health care, all the Fox viewers health care, their personal, intimate, most close-to-the-vest secrets will be in that database, and the IRS is in charge of that database? So the IRS will have the ability potentially ...to deny health care, to deny access, to delay health care.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), on Fox News, May 15, 2013

 “When people realize that their most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS that’s been willing to use people’s tax information against political opponents of this administration, then people have pause and they pull back in horror.”

— Bachmann, on ABC News/Yahoo, May 20


With the Internal Revenue Service in the news, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has taken the opportunity to marry that scandal with her ongoing battle against the president’s health-care law, a.k.a. “Obamacare.”

The picture she has sketched is pretty frightening — that the “most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS” via a vast database. ...

The Pinocchio Test

Bachmann has made a sweeping claim: the “most personal, sensitive, intimate, private health-care information is in the hands of the IRS” under the health-care law. There is no evidence to support this assertion, and she is simply scaring people when she repeats it on television.

Bachmann thus continues her record-breaking streak of outlandish claims.

Four Pinocchios


(Emphasis in the original.)

Michele has spoken truthfully about one thing, however:  The Democrats are targeting her this time around.  This could be fun.

Tea Party Jihad

(Click on image to enlarge and then trot on back.)

David Horsey has taken another look on the seemingly unending "scandal investigations" by the GOP and has come up with a very interesting word to describe the activity which has essentially brought Congress to a standstill.

Now that more extensive, dispassionate reporting has been done about the "scandal” at the IRS, it is abundantly obvious that what is being called “targeting” of tea party organizations and other conservative groups was the result of bureaucratic confusion, not political conspiracy.

The facts, of course, will not get in the way of this latest Republican jihad against the Obama administration. Republicans will continue to pump up the illusion of scandal for weeks to come and, just as some folks on the right remain convinced that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, those same people will take to their graves the conviction that he and his minions at the IRS plotted to impede the liberties of tea party activists. ...

The shortcut they used in trying to identify groups whose political activities might bar them from getting a tax break was to employ keywords like “tea party” and “patriot” in data searches. As a result, numerous conservative groups got snared for extra scrutiny. But they were not alone. More than 400 organizations of various types got special attention, including two dozen or more liberal groups.

That is not so much a case of targeting as it is an example of casting a wide net to scoop up a variety of politically oriented associations. And it definitely falls far short of a serious scandal. Watergate, this is not. Nor does it have any of the prurient appeal of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. In the end, no one is going to care that a few tax bureaucrats buried by an avalanche of paperwork found a clumsy way to try to dig themselves out.   [Emphasis added]

The reference to "this latest Republican jihad" is almost perfect.  It's only flaw is that it's not really fair to the Islamic sense of jihad, which is a righteous battle.  Still, the Tea Party wing of the GOP probably does see this as a holy war and the rest of the party is only too happy to go along with the wackaloons if it means gains in 2014 and victory in 2016.

The important fact, however, is that while the IRS used shortcuts, not just conservative groups got snagged.  Liberal groups also got audited or at least checked out.  Unfortunately our fearless leader threw a couple of IRS officials under the bus before getting all the facts himself.

Also unfortunate is what all this mucking around in faux scandals is costing the country: money and time that could be better spent on solving real problems.

But, hey!  That would involve buckling down and doing some work that would actually benefit the nation.  We can't be having that, can we?

Oh My, Michele!

(Cartoon by Steve Sack and published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune 4/4/13.  Click on image to enlarge and then hustle back.)

It's one thing to have your home town newspaper come done on you for your really stupid and weak fabrications, it's something else when a major national newspaper does it.

...But we were curious about Bachmann’s suggestion that she voted against the 2011 Budget Control Act because she was worried about the impact on poorer segments of the population. ...

We searched high and low for any statements that Bachmann made at the time warning about the “calamities” that would fall on the poor because of budget cuts.

What we found instead were comments by Bachmann complaining that the Budget Control Act did not cut spending enough. She especially decried the fact that the debt ceiling was increased, arguing instead that the government could avoid default simply by making immediate and steep cuts. “We needed real cuts and a fundamental restructuring in the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars to solve the spending crisis we are in,” Bachmann said in a statement after the bill was passed. “Someone has to say NO to more spending. I will.”

While Bachmann made no mention of the impact on poorer Americans, she added: “This deal puts our national security at risk because of the severe cuts to defense that kick in should the President not do his job in the next few months.” ...

During that period, Bachmann also was just one of nine House Republicans who earlier had opposed a Republican alternative plan, known as the “Cut Cap and Balance Act,” which would have immediately reduced spending by $111 billion. In a floor speech, Bachmann said that while she embraced the bill’s principles, “the motion does not go far enough in fundamentally restructuring the way Washington spends taxpayer dollars.”

In other words, Bachmann in her statements and comments at the time wanted to cut spending even more — except for defense spending. The current sequester cuts security and nonsecurity spending by equal amounts, so presumably under Bachmann’s 2011 formula, the cutting of nonsecurity programs that she now says “breaks everyone’s hearts” would have been deeper.    [Emphasis added]

And what did Michele win for this egregious bit of flim-flammery?  A rating of "Four Pinocchios", the highest rating for lies in a fact check.

Once again, Michele has ignored the basic rule of staying alive in politics:  don't lie if there are ways to prove you are lying.  This is getting to be too easy a target.

More popcorn please.

My Newest Nightmare

(Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

David Horsey reminds me of something I have been conveniently ignoring:  the sale of the Tribune properties, including the Los Angeles Times.

The people of Los Angeles would be up in arms if some out-of-town billionaires tried to buy the Dodgers and institute a rule that only right-handers could play on the team. Petitions would be signed, protests would be organized and politicians would rise up to condemn the sale. It would be nice if there were a similar outcry at the prospect of the Koch brothers buying the Los Angeles Times.

After all, as exciting as it may be for a city to have a major league sports team, a good newspaper is a far more valuable asset. Even in these tough days for the journalism business, newspapers remain the core providers of comprehensive news coverage in every town that still has one. Sure, there are local television stations. They are great if all you need to know about is crime, weather and traffic. There’s the Internet, if you are free to spend your day surfing for bits of information that may or may not be true. But the providers of America’s bedrock news reporting are still newspaper journalists.

Newspapers continue to provide most of the comprehensive coverage of government, business and society at large that is essential to democracy. It would seem like a terrible idea to turn that function over to rich industrialists seeking a megaphone for their self-serving political views, but that very well may happen, not only in L.A., but in Chicago, Baltimore and the several other American cities with newspapers owned by the Tribune Co. ...

That is where David and Charles Koch come in. The brothers own Koch Industries, a Kansas-based energy and manufacturing conglomerate that rakes in $115 billion annually. That’s the money to burn. And the motivation? Right-wing ideology. The Kochs hate government regulation and taxes and they love tea party Republicans. Over the years, they have dumped millions of dollars into think tanks, magazines, political action committees, candidates and attack ads – all of them staunchly conservative.

Having fallen short of their objective of crushing Democrats and liberalism, they now apparently believe a necessary component in their strategy is ownership of a few major newspapers. It is doubtful they want to merely have a voice on the editorial pages, as has always been a publisher’s prerogative. It is far more likely they hope to create print versions of Fox News.    [Emphasis added]

It was bad enough when Rupert Murdoch showed interest in buying the bankrupt Tribune Co, but having the Koch Brothers in the bidding war just makes it worse.

Does this mean we can expect Southern California to go all conservative?  Of course not, but it does mean the end to easy access to the Times Washington Bureau, its political reporters (who do a pretty decent job), and (worst of all) David Horsey and Ted Rall.  We'll have Jonah Goldberg 8 days a week, and ALEC blast faxes rather than news.

And I'm not quite sure what we can do about it.

California Dreaming

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 4/26/13 by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge and then return for an explanation.)

Yes, yes, I know.  I used this same cartoon for yesterday's post.  But I do so for a reason.  It's to bring one possible specific application from yesterday's post to today's California.

I spotted an interesting op-ed piece over the weekend from Garry South, a longtime Democratic strategist and commentator who ran Gov. Gray Davis' campaigns in 1998 and 2002.  Clearly Mr. South has a political bias, but he does raise some interesting issues.

First, a history lesson. In three of the last four non-presidential elections, Republicans actually nominated Latinos for statewide office: Ruben Barrales for controller in 1998, Gary Mendoza for insurance commissioner in 2002 and Maldonado for lieutenant governor in 2010. All three were attractive, articulate candidates with compelling personal stories.

But all three went down in flames, receiving an average of only 37.9% of the vote. And there is no indication in postelection analyses that they received any meaningfully higher share of the Latino vote than a white male GOP candidate would have gotten. ...

Now for some data. Part of the GOP problem with Latinos is generational. Latinos are, on average, the youngest-skewing voters of all, and Republicans are in deep trouble with young voters of all ethnicities. Data indicate that more than 70% of all Latino voters in the Golden State have registered since 1994, when the divisive, anti-immigrant Proposition 187 campaign was spearheaded by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. Proposition 187 was a watershed event in California political history, as it turned an entire generation of Latinos into reliable Democratic voters.

How reliable? Some voter blocs in California tend to be swing voters; not Latinos. A huge majority of California Latinos vote generically Democratic, whether the Democratic candidate is strong or weak, pretty or ugly, wins or loses. ...

In further bad news for the California GOP, Latinos also are the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Whites have been declining in terms of the composition of the turnout for years. In 1994, with Wilson seeking a second term and Proposition 187 on the ballot, whites constituted 82% of the state's voters, Latinos only 8%. In the 2012 general election, whites were just 55%, while Latinos were 22%, a historic high. And since 1994, GOP nominees for president and governor in the state have received only, on average, 25.5% of the Latino vote. As Bill Clinton would say, do the math.

Latino voters, by any analysis — historical or statistical — are just not available for Republican candidates in California at this time, whether Latino-surnamed or not.    [Emphasis added] 

Like I said, South has a bias, but I have no reason to doubt his statistics and for one particular reason.  The state was smart enough to pass a proposition which took redistricting out of the hands of the state legislature (prone to gerrymandering) and into the hands of a non-partisan citizen's commission.  Districts were fairly and sensibly drawn.  The result was to make California reliably blue in most districts.

Also, his comments on the effect of Prop 187 is and will continue to be a thorn in the side of Republicans.  The party didn't want Latinos then and presumably still doesn't, unless they promise to vote for Republicans.  Young people just aren't willing to take the risk of depending on the Goofy Old Paranoids, not matter what their ethnicity.  Young people, who have grandparents here without papers surely won't.

And that's one of the reasons I'm glad I live in California.

Facing Which Direction?

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published in the Atlanta Journal Consitution April 26, 2012.  Click on image to enlarge, and then be good enough to return.)

Sometimes the editorial board of the Washington Post gets it right, and this is one of those times.

AT ABORTION clinics, the presence of awnings, the width of doorways and the dimensions of janitorial closets have little to do with the health of patients. But by requiring that Virginia’s 20 abortion clinics conform to strict licensing standards designed for new hospitals, the state has ensured that many or most of them will be driven out of business in the coming months. ...

...According to a survey by the state Health Department, just one of the 19 surviving clinics meets the requirements. Fifteen of the remaining facilities estimated their combined costs of compliance at $14.5?million.

Some of the clinics, including those operated by Planned Parenthood, which has a national fundraising network, will survive. Many others, which are run as small businesses, probably will not. Most have no means to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to widen corridors, install state-of-the-art surgical sinks and expand parking lots.

What’s more, the upgrades they face are arbitrary manifestations of the state’s overweening power. Other types of walk-in clinics, including those that perform oral and cosmetic surgery, are unaffected by the regulations. ...

Regulation is essential for all health services. But there is no evidence that unsanitary conditions or slapdash procedures are common at abortion clinics in Virginia nor that women who seek services from them are at risk. The state’s assault on women’s reproductive rights is an ideological crusade masquerading as concern for public health.   [Emphasis added]

Exactly so.

The Republican  Party continues to claim it is returning to its roots, that it has much to offer minorities and immigrants and women, but those claims are usually offset by its basest base:  Limbaugh, the Tea Partiers, the Religious Reich.  So who are we to believe?

I guess we'll have to wait until 2014 to find out.

He's No FDR

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution 4/12/13.  Click on image to enlarge and then get back here.)

Michael Hiltzig reminds us that it is a Democratic president who is willing to lower Social Security benefits by using the chained CPI method in order to cut the deficit, even after the discovery that the whole "austerity" idea is based on a deliberately false study.

Washington's tug of war over the federal budget has many wonders, but the biggest one of all must be the lengths to which politicians and pundits will go to deprive Granny and Grandpa of $30 a month.

That's the amount by which benefits for the average Social Security retiree would be reduced by 2023 under a provision in President Obama's new budget. It might not sound like much to the president or fans of the proposal in both parties and the Washington commentariat. For the retiree trying to stretch an average monthly check of about $1,200 to cover housing, healthcare and every other necessity under the sun, it looms rather larger.

The idea that Social Security benefits should be on the table in budget talks arises from the fear that America's national debt, driven by its budget deficit, is growing to the point that it will push us over the economic brink.

Here's the tragedy of it: That fear is based on junk economics. ...

Front and center among his proposed deficit-reduction tools were changes to Medicare and Social Security. The former involved increasing premiums paid by higher-income seniors. The centerpiece of his Social Security rollback was a change in the index for cost-of-living increases from the traditional consumer price index to the "chained" CPI.

If you've been following the Washington debate, you know that the uncanny popularity of the chained CPI as a deficit nostrum lies in its supposed "accuracy." The idea is that it incorporates certain changes people make in their purchasing behavior when prices rise — when apples go up in price, they buy bananas instead. Therefore it typically yields a lower inflation number.

What you may not know is that these behavioral changes are very hard to track and the conclusions applied by the index-makers often conjectural. (What if you like apples but not bananas?) Experts also debate whether consumers respond to absolute price changes or relative price changes — if hamburger is cheaper than steak but its price rises faster, people may actually buy more steak. And under many circumstances people may not have a choice: If gasoline goes up, you may not have the option to take the bus to work instead. ...

It's rare for bad research, bad economics and bad politics to come together to produce something so just plain bad. And it's sad that Obama proposed a budget that undermined his credibility with the progressives who should be providing him with his firmest support, and even gave some Republicans the latitude to attack him from the left, as someone willing to balance his budget on the backs of the elderly. Who would have thought that Barack Obama, of all people, would be going for the title of Democratic president least likely to be mistaken for Franklin Roosevelt?   [Emphasis added]

FDR?  Hell!  Obama wouldn't even be mistaken for Dwight Eisenhower.  What is so galling about the president's position is that he continues to offer to cut the programs for the elders and the poor even after the disclosure that the study allegedly forming the basis for cutting the budget has been shown to be based on errors, presumably intentional errors.

I can only assume that he wants to grind the poor and the elders, that he's on the same side as the GOP in that regard, and that he serves someone other than the 99% of us.  He's aiming for a Grand Bargain, but it's not for our benefit.

Nightmare Scenario

(Click on image to enlarge and then return, please.)

David Horsey has presented us with a possible scenario that is frightening in its implication.  All things considered, it is certainly conceivable that the GOP could take over both houses of Congress and the White House by 2016.

Since Mitt Romney lost to President Obama on Nov. 6, the conventional wisdom has been that the Republican Party is in trouble. The less conventional truth is that it is the Democrats whose chances many be more bleak. ...

In the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans won big in state legislative races, picking up 675 seats nationwide. Before that election, the GOP was in full control of 14 state legislatures while Democrats were in charge in 27. After the election, Republicans had won control in 26 states and Democrats' number had dropped to 17. As a result, Republicans were able to redraw congressional districts more to their liking in several key states. Redistricting has given Republicans such an advantage that they do not need to command anything close to a majority nationwide in order to retain control of the House of Representatives for years to come.

Republicans are also positioned well to take back power in the U.S. Senate in 2014. Here, again, being unpopular with a majority of Americans does not matter so much. Because each state gets two senators, no matter what their population may be, and because Republicans dominate in states such as Alaska and Wyoming that have fewer people than they have wild animals, the GOP has a built-in head start in the competition for Senate control.

In the coming election, there appears to be no Republican senator who is in dire risk of losing his seat, and the two who are retiring are from the GOP-leaning states of Nebraska and Georgia. Democrats, meanwhile, have six incumbent senators who are retiring, four of them from states that are favorable ground for Republicans – West Virginia, South Dakota, Iowa and Montana. ...

Republicans might blow an opportunity for victory by going crazy and nominating a man to please their fevered base -- Rand Paul or Rick Santorum -- but they could also make their pick someone from vote-rich Florida – Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio – and stand a good chance of winning the White House. Bush is the smarter brother in his famous political family and would appeal to the centrist voters who swing elections. Rubio is a youthful, fresh face of conservatism. Either man could cut into the Democrats’ Latino vote enough to sway an election.   [Emphasis added]

 All of this assumes that the Republican Party will finally be able to shake off the hold its basest base has on the incumbents who fear being primaried by Tea Party candidates.  Right now, a lot of money from folks like Karl Rove and his pals and the Koch Brothers is flowing like cheap wine at a toga party in order to do just that.  Nods toward immigration reform is one sign of that strategy.

And, as I mentioned yesterday, the revisionists are busily scrubbing the Bush name squeaky clean to leave a Jeb Bush path to the White House.

The biggest element, however, is one which Horsey rightfully emphasizes:  Republican control of state legislatures and governorships.  With the help of ALEC, districts were gerrymandered in most states, and legislation passed since then which makes Democratic victories even more unlikely.  Ironically, the Republican Party adapted the Howard Dean 50-state strategy to their own ends, while the Democrats decided to go with Rahm Emmanual's "muscle" a few states plan. 

So, yes, this nightmare could very well be coming up.  We won't want popcorn.  Just plenty of cat food.

Revising History, Just In Time

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 4/23/13 by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

George W. Bush's presidential library is opening just in time for the GOP to revise history further.  After all, there's an election coming up in 2014 and an even bigger one coming up in 2016.  The Bush name has to be burnished for a return by the family.  W has spent the last four plus years quietly and far beyond the ken of the people in this country.  That really hasn't been much of a problem, especially since Obama has pretty much continued with the agenda initiated by W and his NeoCon buddies.

Since then, Bush has absented himself from both policy disputes and political battles. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that the passage of time and Bush’s relative invisibility have been beneficial to a chief executive who left office surrounded by controversy.

Days before his second term ended in 2009, Bush’s approval rating among all adults was 33 percent positive and 66 percent negative. The new poll found 47 percent saying they approve and 50 percent saying they disapprove. Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama’s, at 47 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC surveys.

Majorities said they still dis­approve of Bush’s performance on the Iraq war and the economy, but his economic approval numbers nearly doubled between December 2008 and today, from 24 percent to 43 percent, with 53 percent disapproving. Iraq remains the most troublesome part of his legacy. Today, 57 percent say they disapprove of his decision to invade, though that is down from 65 percent in the spring of 2008, the last time the question was asked. ...

Last week’s Boston Marathon bombing was a tragic reminder of the episode that changed Bush’s presidency. After 9/11, Bush implemented aggressive anti-terrorism policies, many of which were embraced by the Obama administration, though not the controversial interrogation measures authorized under Bush. A recent report by the Constitution Project concluded that those policies resulted in torture of some detainees.   [Emphasis added]

Obama may not be authorizing water boarding, but he is obviously OK with keeping Gitmo and force-feeding its current inhabitants, many of whom are innocent of the charges under which they are kept.  And Obama is still backing and supporting the odious provisions of the Patriot Act and warrantless searches.  Is it any wonder that the GOP is finding it relatively easy to rehabilitate W?

And that means Jeb Bush's son will run for a state post in Texas in 2014 to test the waters, and then Jeb himself will be persuaded (ha-ha) to enter the 2016 primaries to save the Republicans from themselves.

See?  Easy.

More Michele

(Cartoon by Sack and published 4/14/2012 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Our Michele has been packing her bags, with money instead of clothes, as Jim Graves has announced that he will be running against her again in next year's election for that House seat.

The expected rematch is on between Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann and DFL businessman Jim Graves, who came within a single percentage point of an upset in last November's race for her U.S. House seat.

 

The new Graves campaign issued a statement Thursday morning announcing that he will make another run at the four-term congresswoman, a lightning rod for Democrats who faces ethics and campaign finance allegations stemming from her 2012 presidential run.

 

Bachmann reacted to the news with a fundraising email to supporters announcing “He’s Back.”

 

Her initial statement -- and hard-hitting video -- presaged a tough campaign:

 

“Just a few moments ago, after receiving his marching orders from the Pelosi-Obama campaign machine, my Democratic opponent from last election announced he will again try to defeat me in 2014,” Bachmann told supporters.

 

Graves emphasized his business background as founder and former CEO of the AmericInn Hotel chain. “These days Congress is all about and scoring political points rather than actually solving problems,” he said in a statement. “I’m not interested in celebrity, only in solutions.”

 

Graves came within 4,296 votes of upending Bachmann in November, a contest that featured a presidential election at the top of the ticket. President Obama will not be on the ballot in 2014. But as seen from the video her campaign released immediately upon Graves' announcement, it is clear she is going to try to morph Graves into Obama, a target that's better suited to her conservative base.   [Emphasis added]

The state DFL party has already sent money to Graves with the caveat that the campaign funds would not foreclose any other party member from running.  It just wants some parity with the lies and smears our Michele will be doling out from this point onward.

 

This is a good start.  It would be nice if the Democratic Party would ship some campaign funds as well.  Howard Dean showed how a 50-state strategy could work.  Rahm Emmanual showed how limited campaign funding fails.

 

I have no illusions that Jim Graves will be as liberal as Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, but he has to be better than Bachmann, she who would rather raise money and lie than actually, you know, engage in rational legislation.  And wouldn't it be nice to have her off the Intelligence Committee?  I mean, the cognitive dissonance is just too much for my old brain to process.

Meeeeeee-chele

(Cartoon by Steve Sack and published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune 4/4/13.  Click on image to enlarge and then hustle back.)

Generally, when the home town newspaper publishes a story setting forth the lack of veracity of a politician, that politician is in some kind of hot water.  Michele Bachmann is about to find out whether that holds for her as well.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Congressional ethics watchdogs are looking into allegations of financial misdeeds in her presidential campaign. Separately, a former Bachmann Iowa campaign worker has sued over her campaign's use of an email list. That matter has also resulted in a criminal investigation.

In answer to a question about the concerns, Bachmann said on Tuesday that none of the allegations are true.

"There’s political motivations that are involved because I've been named as the number one target (for) defeat by the Democrat Party, by Nancy Pelosi and also by SuperPACs so, you know no one can know anyone’s thoughts or intents, but clearly it looks like it’s politically motivated. And they’re not true," she said. "I’m working very closely with the people that are involved to make sure that we answer all the questions and we get to the bottom of it and I’m thoroughly convinced that I'll be cleared."

Despite Bachmann’s assertions to the contrary, the legal and ethical charges that have been leveled against her have all come from members of her own presidential campaign staff.

On Tuesday, Bachmann denied that the questions about her campaign have come from Republicans, not Democrats.   [Emphasis added]

Michele, Michele, Michele.  Never lie about something that can be checked out or easily verified, especially if there are court records involved.  Waffle a little, but don't categorically deny.

And here's the sad part for the rest of us.  The Democratic Party decided not to spend money to support the Dem running against here in 2012.  If it had funded the campaign, Bachmann would not be sitting in the House of Representatives right now and wouldn't be gearing for another presidential run in 2016.

Oh, well.

Another Give-Away

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (March 22, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge -- which you really have to do to appreciate it -- and then please come back.)

Michael Hiltzig has a great post on the lack of integrity (and compassion, and intelligence) of the critters in Washington DC.  His subject is the slipping of the chained cpi method for calculating cost of living raises for those on Social Security.

It's a benefit cut. It's not merely a "technical" change. It's not a "more accurate" measure of inflation.

The "chained CPI" has become one of the linchpins of the debate in Washington over what to do about the cost of Social Security. The idea is to ratchet back the annual cost-of-living adjustment provided to recipients by basing them no longer on the standard consumer price index, but this new creature. Its virtue, supposedly, is that it points to a slower inflation rate than the unchained index, by about .3% a year.

But as I wrote in 2011, it's a stealth benefit cut for seniors. After 10 years, the average Social Security retiree will be getting 3% a year less than under current law; after 20 years it's 6%. The change is presumed to be almost painless--who would notice a lower cost-of-living adjustment that amounts to three-tenths of one percent. So the proposal has garnered the favor of Democrats in Congress and President Obama, who seem to think they can offer it as a concession to Republicans and get something good in exchange, like a tax increase. ...

It's a benefit cut. It's not merely a "technical" change. It's not a "more accurate" measure of inflation.

Let's face it. The "chained CPI" is a benefit cut, dressed up in the faux-finery of economic rigor. Can't Washington be even a teensy bit honest about what it's up to?  [Emphasis added]

Why, no, Michael, Washington can't be "even a teensy bit honest about what it's up to."  If it were, and if the Village bobbleheaded press would actually print the truth about the benefit cut, all hell might break loose.

And as for hope that the GOP as currently constituted will give in on the issue of raising taxes, especially on the wealthy, oh, please!  Paul Ryan and his Tea Party Express is still rolling, Mitch McConnell is still not cooperating.  Why shouldn't they continue to say no.  They've snookered the White House, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

Joel Pett's cartoon nailed it quite nicely, don't you think?

The question is, what are we prepared to do about it?

Uncivil War

Earlier this week, David Horsey took a look at the CPAC conference and noted the rather dramatic split in the Republican Party.  The basest base wants to maintain the purity of a party for the rich and white, while the rest of the party would like to start winning elections.

A new report commissioned by the Republican National Committee reads like an anti-GOP critique from the “lame stream media.” It describes the party as too rigidly ideological, too in thrall to greedy corporations, too disconnected from nonwhite and young voters, and in desperate need of new ideas. ...

Since the Sarah Palin/Rush Limbaugh wing of the party was clearly not represented on the committee, it may not be surprising that conservative purists sustained the biggest hit in the report. Still, the fact that the five took suggestions from 50,000 rank-and-file party members gives the report some weight. And the authors would have been fools if they had ignored information gathered from focus groups that indicates a great many Americans perceive Republicans as a bunch of narrow-minded, out-of-touch, homophobic, stuffy old white men who are interested only in the welfare of rich people. ...

CPAC actually provided a vivid example of the fevered, insular mindset that the RNC committee sees as a huge problem for the party. “The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself," the committee’s report says. "We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”

Yet, while the RNC is saying it is time to open the doors to new people and new ideas, the lineup of CPAC speakers was composed almost entirely of insular ideologues, gay-bashers, gun fetishists, religious fundamentalists, birth control foes and devotees of wacky conspiracy theories. CPAC stars such as Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Donald Trump and the National Rifle Assn.'s Wayne LaPierre do not represent a new direction for the GOP; they represent exactly what the Republican National Committee is warning against.    [Emphasis added]

One wag at Eschaton suggested that CPAC stood for "Crazy People Acting Crazy," and I think that summarizes it nicely.  Recent polls show that a majority of Americans want better background checks for gun purchases, have no problems with gay marriage, and are in favor of immigration reform even if it provides a pathway to citizenship for those undocumented immigrants already here.  That the Republican Party wants to tap into those majorities for votes makes perfect sense. But Palin and Rush are not about to give up, at least not yet.

If the RNC report is ignored and the Tea Party activists continue to hold a knife against the throat of the rest of the party, the GOP may find itself shut out all over the country the way it was shut out in California in 2012. 

And wouldn't that be a shame.

Delusional Or Paid For

(Click on image to enlarge and then hustle right on back.  Please.)

Wow, I turn my back on David Horsey for a couple of days and he roars back with a pip of a column.  In this one he takes aim at the GOP, kicks some butt, and doesn't even bother with taking names.

Republicans make the claim that their party represents the concerns of average, hard-working, family-centered Americans. It is a curious claim, given that their party unfailingly opposes any measure that gives those average Americans a break.

Average Americans struggle to pay for their kids' college tuitions. Their incomes have stagnated. They have lost jobs. They have been screwed over by mortgage companies and banks. They have seen their 401(k) retirement savings decimated and pensions disappear.

Yet, the Republicans who claim to be their champions consistently side with the big banks and financial industry players who gambled with home mortgages, ransacked pension systems and nearly brought the economy to collapse. They side with unscrupulous business interests instead of powerless consumers. They limit financial aid to students and cut funding for higher education. They target unions that once were able to win decent incomes for workers, instead favoring corporations that cut wages, lay off employees and demand more work from those remaining on the job. They oppose extensions of unemployment compensation and fight against increases in the minimum wage.

In all situations, Republicans act as if their only motivation is to protect the interests of business owners, big corporations and Wall Street.    [Emphasis added]

David tries to play fair, suggesting that the Republicans simply have not learned that their current posture is like that of Calvin Coolidge:  the Free Market will cure everything.  They simply have forgotten what resulted from Coolidge's approach.  Me, I think that's only part of it.  I also think they've discovered that it pays to be delusional, and pays quite handsomely. 

Unfortunately for the rest of us, a lot of Democrats are operating with the same funds.  They just speak a better line.

David Shows His Cynicism

Well, David Horsey has a cynical side.  His latest column certainly matches my mood of late, so I can't really blame him.  Unfortunately, I can't cheer him up either. 

In the movies, when humanity is faced with imminent doom, whether from a massive asteroid or an invasion of space monsters, the people of the world forget their differences, band together and save themselves. In the real world, such unanimity of purpose is far more rare. When it came time to help their fellow Americans whose lives were upended by Sandy, quite a few members of Congress balked, delayed and refused to let go of their compulsive quest to scale back government spending. Ideology trumped compassion. ...

If a gigantic asteroid were barreling toward impact with our planet, you can bet there would be at least a few members of Congress who would insist on leaving it alone, either because they would see it as a warning shot from the Almighty or because a mining company with a savvy team of lobbyists had laid claim to the big rock. Two minutes before Armageddon, somebody will still be trying to figure out how to make a quick buck off of it and he’ll have friends in Congress insisting that it’s the American way.

Ouch!

But, oh, so true.  As Horsey notes in the rest of the column, we are  seeing that play out in the climate change arena.  We should have been doing something a decade ago at least, but even now, when we are seeing the dramatic storms, the crippling droughts, the huge swings in temperatures, the climate change deniers, fueled by the dollars from the oil, gas, and coal companies have our congress critters on both sides of the aisle looking the other way.  Money today, even if (or especially because) catastrophe tomorrow.

We are so screwed.

H2 Uh-Oh

Poor Marco Rubio.  The shining light of the GOP, the one many hope will lead the party out of the desert, didn't fare so well in his delivery of the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address.  And for good reason (as David Horsey pointed out):  he was stuck of the old rhetoric, the one that cost them the 2012 election.

It is no wonder Florida Sen. Marco Rubio needed to grab a bottle of water in the middle of delivering the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. The speech he was given to recite was like a hunk of stale, dry sourdough and it surely caught in his throat.

For 30 years, Republican aspirants to the presidency have been giving variations of the same speech. It sounded fresh and bold when Ronald Reagan first spoke the words as a candidate in 1980. At that point, the liberal era that began with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 had pretty much run out of gas. Democrats had grown too comfortable with their seemingly permanent lock on the House of Representatives, while their ideas about the creative use of government had devolved into a system of doling out federal dollars to clamoring interest groups.

Reagan declared that government was the problem, not the solution, and that taxes were too high and regulations on business too onerous. It was a winning message and helped bring blue-collar men and the South firmly into the Republican fold.

Rubio spoke the same language on Tuesday night but it sounded like a talking-points memo left over from Mitt Romney’s losing campaign. Rather than looking like a young man with new ideas, Rubio looked like a novice with no thoughts of his own.   [Emphasis added]

As Horsey pointed out in the rest of his column, the country has changed since Reagan in all sorts of ways.  And the economy has changed in drastic and disheartening ways.  The problems and issues we face are real, yet the GOP is still quoting Reagan, and, sadly enough, the failed candidate Mitt Romney.

It's like I said earlier in the week.  The GOP is going with the "Lipstick On A Pig" approach.  That can't work much longer, even in the South.

Lipstick On A Pig

(Graphic snagged from davepear.com.)

So the State of the Union address was delivered last night by President Obama, followed by 2 --count 'em, 2-- responses from the GOP.  I didn't watch/listen to any of it.  I was in a relatively good mood and didn't want to spoil it.  I imagine I'll have a few comments later in the week.

What I do want to comment on is the attempted "re-branding" of the Republican party, hence the graphic.  Leonard Pitts, Jr. had a pretty solid analysis of just what is going on with that alleged change in focus. 

Maybe the party is finally over.

Meaning not simply the Grand Old Party, but more specifically the bacchanal of the bizarre and carnival of crazy to which it has lately devolved. So obvious has this devolution become that even Republican stalwarts have been heard to decry the parody of a party the GOP has become.

Except now we see signs suggesting maybe a corner has been turned. There was, for example, that surprising bipartisan consensus on immigration reform, which one would have thought about as likely as a Ted Nugent concert on the White House lawn. And Politico reports Karl Rove has started a super PAC whose mission is to keep the more .?.?. ahem, colorful candidates from winning Republican primaries. Politico also quotes what it calls a high-profile strategist who said party leaders are now trying to "marginalize the cranks, haters and bigots" they until recently portrayed as courageous truth tellers. ...

So yes, signs are plentiful that something is afoot among the Republicans. But what does it mean? ...

 One might hope.

But one might be well-advised to gird that hope with wariness, given that this is the same party whose leaders, as reported on PBS' "Frontline," held a meeting in 2009 and chose obstructionism as a political strategy. Note that, even while repeating his "stupid party" admonition at a GOP meeting in Charlotte last month, Jindal assured his audience this did not mean rethinking or even moderating the party's hardcore - and frankly, out of touch - stands on issues such as abortion and marriage equality.

No, he explained, he's talking about changing the packaging - not what's in it. Putting lipstick on the proverbial pig, in other words.   [Emphasis added]

 Bingo!

Evidence of that cosmetic change came yesterday when 22 GOP senators voted against the Violence Against Women Act.  We'll see what the House Republicans, many of them from the Tea Party wing, will do to it, probably by the end of the session.

Besides, as we liberals learned the hard way, hope is not a very good strategy.

This Is Getting Interesting

[Note:  I'm having some financial problems right now.  I know my timing is atrocious, given all the fund raisers lately, but if you can spare a little more, please donate to my "catfood for me and Home Boy" fund.  Thank you.]

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 12/30/12 by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

I know, I know:  I'm harping on immigration a lot these days.  It's just that a lot of stuff is unfolding right now that I find quite interesting (and, truth be told, amusing).

First of all, in addition to the bipartisan group of senators who have crafted the broad outlines of an immigration bill, apparently there is a bipartisan group of House members doing the same thing:

A secretive group of House members from both parties is racing to complete an immigration bill in the next two weeks with an eye toward introducing legislation before President Obama’s State of the Union address on Feb. 12, said two congressional aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

The draft bill, written behind closed doors by three Democrats and three Republicans, so far includes a path to legal status, new border security measures and tighter restrictions on employers. It tracks closely with the blueprint laid out by the bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday, said the aides. ...

Congressional aides confirmed that along with Diaz-Balart, Republicans John Carter and Sam Johnson, both of Texas, are part of the group, with Democrats Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois, Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, and the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles.

Gutierrez said in a statement that he has been a part of “very constructive conversations with my House colleagues in both parties,” adding that he is confident that “we are poised for action and not just more talk on immigration reform.” He would not confirm that he is part of the group. ...

Like the senators’ framework announced Tuesday, the draft of the House bill allows most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country to apply for probationary legal status and contains border security and enforcement milestones that immigrants must meet before they can become lawful permanent residents. Unlike the Senate proposal, the House version does not set up a commission to certify that the border is secure.

One detail that has not been worked out yet between the House members is exactly how illegal immigrants who have been granted legal status will be allowed to apply for lawful permanent residence – a green card – and later, to apply for full citizenship.   [Emphasis added]

As I noted yesterday, one of the problems will be sealing (or, I guess, "securing" is the preferred term) the borders.  Who gets to decide that and what exactly do they mean.  People noticed that little problem. 

The fate of 11 million people could hinge on the interpretation of border security.

An immigration-reform blueprint by a bipartisan group of senators includes a path to U.S. citizenship for those who are in the country illegally. But the blueprint, released Monday, specifies that the federal government must first certify that the U.S.-Mexico border is secure.

Immigrant rights groups fear that millions of people will be in limbo until the security threshold appeases those dissatisfied with the border's status. ...

Pat Sexton, president of the Tucson chapter of the Arizona Latino Republican Association, said securing the northern and southern borders will keep out  those seeking to cross illegally once word gets out about the possibility of  legal residency.

“But define securing the border. That’s going to be so politically difficult to do,” Sexton said.  [Emphasis added]

And now the president has weighed in on the issue, although what precisely he wants is still not exactly clear:

 Details on how to achieve a pathway to citizenship still could prove to be a major sticking point between the White House and the Senate group, which is comprised of eight lawmakers - four Democrats and four Republicans.

Obama and the Senate lawmakers all want to require people here illegally to register with the government, pass criminal and national security background checks, pay fees and penalties as well as back taxes, and wait until existing immigration backlogs are cleared before getting in line for green cards. After reaching that status, U.S. law says people can become citizens after five years.

The Senate proposal says that entire process couldn't start until the borders were fully secure and tracking of people in the U.S. on visas had improved. Those vague requirements would almost certainly make the timeline for achieving citizenship longer than what the White House is proposing.

The president urged lawmakers to avoid making the citizenship pathway so difficult that it would appear out of reach for many illegal immigrants.

And that's where we are right now.

What I suspect will happen is that a bill will be sent to the president.  What I also suspect is that it won't have a realistic pathway to citizenship for those already here.  It will be just enough for the GOP to wave their hands excitedly and to shout "Huzzah!  See!  We do care about our Hispanic Brothers!  Now, vote for us!"

Because, after all, this is really what it's all about.

Filibusted

All this rainy, cool weather has served to load my sinuses and my lungs, so I should probably taken the last 24 hours off and slept.  Unfortunately, this whole filibuster deal still has me so deeply annoyed that I wasn't going to get any real rest anyway.  David Horsey didn't help matters.  His cartoon nailed the issue, but as far as I'm concerned, he missed the whole point of this latest Democratic wimp-out.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid shocked and infuriated many of his fellow Democrats on Thursday when he backed away from his pledge to put an end to the curse of the filibuster.

Minority Republicans have been flagrantly using the old filibuster ploy to block even the most mundane bills unless they can win votes from at least 60 of 100 senators. This has effectively stunted the Democrats’ 53-seat majority and stifled initiatives from the Obama White House.

In times past, the filibuster was a rarely invoked parliamentary rule that allowed a single senator to halt legislative business if he was willing to stay on the Senate floor and talk for hour after hour, risking a raw throat, sleep deprivation and a distended bladder. Now, though, it has morphed into a convenient emergency brake that can be pulled remotely by any senator without having to leave the comfort of his or her office. Critics say abuse of the filibuster rule is a major source of the gridlock in Washington that everyone complains about because it unfairly gives the minority a veto over anything the majority wants to do.

Last year, Reid thought he had a deal with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to limit use of filibusters. When he got burned on the deal, Reid apologized to freshman senators in his caucus who had been urging him to rewrite Senate rules and pare back the filibuster to its original form. He said at the time, and again after the election, that he was going to force a change at the start of the new Congress.

Well, that moment came and Reid opted for a deal with McConnell that tweaked filibuster guidelines but left the rules largely unchanged. It will be slightly easier for the president’s nominees for judgeships and positions in his administration to get approved and it will speed up a few procedural steps, but the necessity of having a supermajority to get a bill passed remains. ...

...Hopping mad as they are now, though, a day may come when they'll give thanks that he made a deal with the GOP devil. ...

Democrats may be frustrated for the next two years, but, in the two years that follow, when Republicans could easily be in charge of both the House and the Senate, the Ds may find the filibuster is a very useful weapon. Maybe Harry Reid was just planning ahead.

 Oh, please!

They don't call the U.S. Senate the most powerful country club in the world for nothing.  Sadly, our founders intended that.  Our congress was set up like the 18th Century British Parliament, in which the House of Lords served as a check on the House of Commons.  The English system has evolved from that point.  Our system has not.  And that's just for openers.

More importantly, why on earth would Harry Reid or any Democratic senator trust Mitch McConnell to keep his word on any deal made with him?  He certainly hasn't in the past, and if the GOP gets control of both houses he sure as hell isn't going to in the future.

No, this was a sell-out.  Pure and simple.

And we're the commodity that got sold.

Mission Fail

(Click on image to enlarge and then be good enough to return.)

I was trying to decide on a subject for today's post.  Several came to mind, among them Harry Reid's selling us out on the Senate filibuster rule and my ambivalence of allowing women to serve in combat (which they have done for years, just ask Tammy Duckworth).

I decided on Hillary Clinton's very successful day on Capitol Hill because it was one bit of fun news.  As David Horsey pointed out in yesterday's column, she made her antagonists look like the buffoons they are.

When Hillary Clinton went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Republicans opened their bags of overly ripe conspiracy theories and moldering fruitcake ideas and tossed everything at her. Every shot missed.

Republican senators and congressmen on the foreign affairs committees of both houses had insisted that the departing secretary of State come in for a full day of hearings about the deadly terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Some of them must have thought this was a great chance to do preemptive damage to the most popular choice for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Instead, she made them look like the clumsy bad guys in an Aaron Sorkin political drama.

The State Department's own independent investigative board has already answered most of the serious questions about the Benghazi tragedy in which four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The panel cited the failures of mid-level officials and suggested 29 ways to improve the system. Clinton said implementation of those steps was already 85% complete.

A productive hearing would have concentrated on what else can be done to prevent similar tragedies in the future -- a discussion that would have also included examining why Congress not only consistently underfunds the State Department, but has blocked expenditure of money that has already been appropriated to shore up American diplomatic efforts in several international trouble spots.  [Emphasis added]

Ah, but David, the Republicans weren't interested in a productive hearing.  Shouting "Benghazi!" three times worked to get Susan Rice to back out of her nomination, so the magic was expected to work on Hillary. 

Fools.

I don't know whether Hillary is contemplating a run for the 2016 nomination.  I wouldn't be surprised if she decided that she'd had enough of the political circus.  I also wouldn't be surprised if she decided to give it another go.  Either/or, she didn't look too tired, too old, too incompetent to me.