Category Archives: GOP Overreach

December 12, 2012 · 11:18 AM

MSNBC Anchors Laugh As Michigan Governor Claims Union-Busting Is Good For Workers

 

I saw this on Morning Joe today. It was indeed unintentionally hilarious…

Think Progress

On Wednesday, the hosts MSNBC’s Morning Joe laughed off Gov. Rick Snyder’s (R-MI) claims that the state’s recently-enacted right-to-work law could protect and strengthen unions by encouraging them to show more value to workers, interrupting the governor in bewilderment as he explained his argument.

Snyder appeared on the show less than 12 hours after signing two separate bills allowing public and private union members to opt out of paying union dues, while benefiting from union contracts, and defended the controversial measures. He characterized the law as benefiting workers and unions become more valuable.

The answer shocked the Morning Joe crew and led MSNBC contributor Richard Wolffe to interrupt the governor in mid-answer. Even Joe Scarborough grew incredulous and the Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein sighed heavily as Snyder spoke:

SNYDER: I’ve never said that unions are bad for business. And I don’t believe this is actually anti-union. If you look at it, I believe this is pro-worker, because the way I view it is, is workers now have freedom to choose …

WOLFFE: Hang on. Hang on a second. Are you serious? Are you serious? This is not anti-unions? This actually, at its core undermines the ability for unions to organize. So you can make any argument you like, but saying it’s not …

SNYDER: Unions have to be in a position to present a good value proposition… And if they don’t provide value, people shouldn’t be forced to pay for something they don’t see any value in. So again, this should make unions more effective in terms of having to put a value proposition to workers.

SCARBOROUGH: Governor, while I made a similar argument earlier that workers shouldn’t be compelled to have to pay from their salary to a union with whom they disagree, I would not go so far as to say what you’ve just said, which is that this helps unions. I mean, it undermines unions’ ability to stay vibrant, right?

BERNSTEIN: Absolutely!

SNYDER: It really leaves it up to the union to decide and innovate as to what their value proposition is….

BERNSTEIN: Come on!

Watch it:

Indeed, economic studies of right-to-work states show that workers tend to receive lower wages and smaller benefits than those in states with stronger unions.

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December 7, 2012 · 4:01 PM

What You Need To Know About The Michigan GOP’s ‘Right-To-Work’ Assault On Workers

Apparently there were no lessons learned from the past general election by over-reaching Republican legislators.

Think Progress

On Thursday, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) backtracked on his commitment to avoid so-called “right-to-work” legislation and by the end of the day, both the Michigan House of Representatives and the Michigan state Senate had introduced and passed separate bills aimed at the state’s union workforce.

Michigan Republicans claim the state needs the measure to stay competitive with Indiana, where lawmakers passed “right-to-work” last year. In reality, though, such laws have negative effects on workers and little effect on economic growth. Here is what you need to know about the state GOP’s campaign:

THE LEGISLATION: Both the state House and state Senate passed legislation on Thursday that prohibits private sector unions from requiring members to pay dues. The Senate followed suit and passed a different but similar measure that extends the same prohibition for public sector unions, though firefighters and police officers are exempt. The state House included a budget appropriations provision that is intended to prevent the state’s voters from being able to legally challenge the law through a ballot referendum. Due to state law, both houses are prevented from voting on legislation passed by the other for five days, so neither will be able to fully pass the legislation until Tuesday at the earliest.

THE PROCESS: Union leaders and Democrats claim that Republicans are pushing the legislation through in the lame-duck session to hide the intent of the measures from citizens, and because the legislation would face more trouble after the new House convenes in January. Michigan Republicans hold a 63-47 advantage in the state House, but Democrats narrowed the GOP majority to just eight seats in November. Six Republicans opposed the House measure; five of them won re-election in 2012 (the sixth retired). And Michigan Republicans have good reason to pursue the laws without public debate. Though the state’s voters are evenly split on whether it should become a right-to-work state, 78 percent of voters said the legislature “should focus on issues like creating jobs and improving education, and not changing state laws or rules that would impact unions or make further changes in collective bargaining.”

THE CONSEQUENCES: While Snyder and Republicans pitched “right-to-work” as a pro-worker move aimed at improving the economy, studies show such legislation can cost workers money. The Economic Policy Institute found that right-to-work laws cost all workers, union and otherwise, $1,500 a year in wages and that they make it harder for workers to obtain pensions and health coverage. “If benefits coverage in non-right-to-work states were lowered to the levels of states with these laws, 2 million fewer workers would receive health insurance and 3.8 million fewer workers would receive pensions nationwide,” David Madland and Karla Walter from the Center for American Progress wrote earlier this year. The decreases in union membership that result from right-to-work laws have a significant impact on the middle class and research “shows that there is no relationship between right-to-work laws and state unemployment rates, state per capita income, or state job growth,” EPI wrote in a recent report about Michigan. “Right-to-work” laws also decrease worker safety and can hurt small businesses.

Union leaders are, of course, aghast at Snyder and the GOP’s right-to-work push. “In a state that gave birth to the modern U.S. labor movement, it is unconscionable that Michigan legislators would seek to drive down living standards for Michigan workers and families with a law that will do nothing to improve either the state’s economic climate or the quality of life for Michigan residents,” RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National Nurses United, said in a statement.

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August 28, 2012 · 1:42 PM

This is how elections are bought…Putting the Mega in Mega-Donor

I’m a day late on this one, but it’s seriously worth posting, anyway.

The Progress Report

August 27, 2012

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is by far the GOP’s biggest donor. He has already plowed more than $35 MILLION into the presidential race and says he’ll spend a “limitless” amount to defeat President Obama, perhaps more than $100 MILLION.

Adelson also has his eye on the House of Representatives. He is almost single-handedly bankrolling a Super PAC associated with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), having given the group $5 MILLION. And just last week, Adelson is reported to have contributed $500,000 to a Super PAC backing a single House candidate. That’s right, half a million dollars to influence a single House race.

While these numbers are huge — and pose a huge threat to our democracy — they are actually small potatoes for right-wing billionaires like Adelson.

This handy infographic puts it all into perspective.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed

The GOP’s new women’s outreach strategy: free hair and make-up touch ups.

Pennsylvania GOP senate candidate: getting pregnant from rape is “similar” to having a baby out of wedlock.

Texas GOP senate candidate: Hurricane Isaac is a “blessing” that we should be “thankful” for.

Better know an anti-LGBT senate candidate: Scott Brown (R-MA).

Mitt Romney kicked the overt race-baiting of his campaign up a few notches.

Chris Matthews goes after the RNC Chairman for the GOP’s race-baiting on the campaign trail.

Men defining rape, a history.

GOP platform chair: rape is just a “detail” in the abortion debate.

Republicans held disaster relief funding hostage several times last year.

 

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June 29, 2012 · 6:49 PM

GOP House Rep To Megyn Kelly: We Could Have Eric Holder Arrested

Mediaite

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) appeared on Fox News Channel’s America Live with Megyn Kelly on Friday where he discussed the ongoing House Republican efforts to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder’s involvement into the Fast and Furious gun walking scandal. There he revealed that the House GOP could move to have Holder arrested following a House vote on Thursday that found him in contempt of Congress.

Chaffetz began the interview noting that he had received information that suggests a Washington D.C. attorney has been instructed to not pursue the charges of contempt against Holder that the House of Representatives approved on Thursday.

“The statute does say that you shall do this,” said Chaffetz. “The precedent is that it hasn’t been one in the past. Again, we’ve got to get past this so-called precedent and do what the law says.”

Kelly says that she is aware of another option – that the Sargent at Arms of the House can be instructed to arrest Holder. “Are you going to do that,” asked Kelly.

“That would be fairly dramatic, but yes,” said Chaffetz. “Three options: going through the U.S. attorney, going into civil court or have the Sargent at Arms take control of the situation — which I think some people are going to say we ought to do — but we’re going to exhaust the other ones first.”

“Really,” replied Kelly.

“I find it hard and dramatic to do, but we want to get to the bottom of this,” said Chaffetz. “We’re serious about this.”

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June 28, 2012 · 6:56 PM

GOP Votes for Contempt as “Fast and Furious” Blows Up in Its Face

How are tons of US guns getting to Mexico? Ask conservatives Flickr/Brian.ch

I really don’t like the GOP leadership in The House…

Mother Jones

The “Fast and Furious” imbroglio may have just gone sideways on House Republicans. Just prior to them leading a House vote for contempt against Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, a far-reaching investigation published by Fortune magazine poked major holes in the conservative storyline about the alleged gun operation. Claims that law enforcement engaged in a deadly plot to let Mexican outlaws smuggle US guns, the magazine reports, are based on allegations by a lone whistleblower who may in fact be the only person who did any illegal gun-smuggling. The real cause of violence and crime south of the border, it reports, is lax gun laws in Arizona and elsewhere pushed by Republicans and their friends at the National Rifle Association.

To review the allegations in brief: Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) supposedly recruited local sellers in Arizona to hawk guns to known smugglers, then monitored the flow of those guns to criminal gangs in Mexico in the hopes of catching “big fish,” in a tactic known as “gunwalking” (as opposed to “gun-running”). Two of these ATF-monitored assault weapons ended up at the crime scene where Brian Terry, a US Border Patrol agent, was shot and killed in December 2010. An ATF agent with a crisis of conscience blew the whistle on the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious, and Republicans in Congress began asking questions.

Now, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House government oversight committee, suspects the White House of involvement in the affair, and has demanded the administration turn over scores of internal communications. The White House has acknowledged that mistakes were made and turned over more than 7,600 pages of documents related to the case. But Issa demanded another 100,000 pages of internal administration communications, and President Obama invoked executive privilege to keep the documents confidential. Issa responded by pursuing the contempt-of-Congress vote against Holder—the first ever against a sitting attorney general—on the notion that DOJ screwed up on Holder’s watch.

According to Fortune, though, almost everything about the story that Republicans have been flogging is wrong. And the magazine makes the case that the GOP’s allegations against Holder and the Obama administration aren’t just inaccurate—rather, they distract from the possibility that GOP’s politics are actually to blame for the deluge of three-quarters of a million American guns per year into Mexico. “Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal,” the report states.

Continue reading here…

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June 20, 2012 · 2:02 PM

BREAKING: Obama Asserts Executive Privilege Over ‘Fast & Furious’ Documents

 

 

Here’s the thing…

The Right has had a major conniption over possible legislative attempts to expose their millionaire donors to the Romney campaign.

Yet Darrell Issa and company are just about ready to explode over the idea of President Obama claiming executive privilege over certain White House connected high level documents pertaining to the Department of Justice’s Fast and Furious campaign.

 

The hypocrisy and double standard is astounding but that’s not even the half of it…

 

Think Progress

 

President Obama is asserting executive privilege over documents Republicans are requesting from the Department of Justice in the Fast and Furious investigation.

 

“After you rejected the Department’s recent offers of additional accommodations, you stated that the Committee intends to proceed with its scheduled meeting to consider a resolution citing the Attorney General for contempt for failing to comply with the Committee’s subpoena of October 11, 2011,” James M. Cole, the Deputy Attorney General wrote in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) Wednesday morning. “I write now to inform you that the President has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-February 4, 2011, documents.” The move is certainly not unprecedented: President George W. Bush asserted executive privilege six times during his eight years in office, while President Bill Clinton did so 14 times.

 

UPDATE 

 

Bush invoked the privilege repeatedly: to block a Congressional committee’s subpoenas for documents relating to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the US attorneys scandal that brought down Alberto Gonzales, to prevent Josh Bolten from turning over documents, and to protect Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor and Karl Rove and Scott Jennings from testimony.

 

UPDATE 

Issa on March 20, 2012: “We very clearly want to respect the history of executive privilege.”

 

UPDATE 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on June 11, 2012: “The only constitutionally viable exception to the Department of Justice`s obligation under the subpoena would be executive privilege. The President hasnt asserted that privilege, presumably because the vast majority of the documents at issue aren’t related to communications with the White House. Because the documents don’t fit the category of executive privilege, the department is obligated to turn over the documents.”

 

UPDATE 

Responding to Obama’s use of executive privilege, Issa says “the untimely assertion by the Justice Department falls short of any reason to delay today’s proceedings.”

 

UPDATE 

Grassley has also issued a statement decrying Obama’s action: “The assertion of executive privilege raises monumental questions. How can the President assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the President exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances. The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”

 

UPDATE 

The House Oversight Committee will consider this contempt resolution, which Democrats are opposing.  As Rep. Elijiah Cummings (D-MD) explained to Issa, “You accused him of a cover-up for protecting documents that he was prohibited by law from producing.”

 

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April 22, 2012 · 12:45 AM

Class Warfare: Eric Cantor Reveals Republican Plan To Tax The Poor And Middle Class (VIDEO)

Just as Mitt Romney loves stay-at-home moms…unless they are poor and dependent on Government assistance, it appears that Eric Cantor and Congress might revisit their “no increase in taxes” credo so that  the 45% that he says doesn’t pay taxes can be taxed.

Stay tuned…

Addicting Info

Despite their pledge to Grover Norquist to never again raise taxes, Republicans have decided that their promise only applies to the wealthy and corporations. During a breakfast event on Thursday, Eric Cantor suggested to ABC’s Jon Karl that Republicans intend to punish the poor and middle class even more by squeezing more income taxes out of them so they can pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

CANTOR: We also know that over 45 percent of the people in this country don’t pay income taxes at all, and we have to question whether that’s fair. And should we broaden the base in a way that we can lower the rates for everybody that pays taxes.

KARL: Just wondering, what do you do about that? Are you saying we need to have a tax increase on the 45 percent who right now pay no federal income tax?

CANTOR: I’m saying that, just in a macro way of looking at it, you’ve got to discuss that issue. How do you deal with a shrinking pie and number of people and entities that support the operations of government, and how do you go about continuing to milk them more, if that’s what some want to do, but preserve their ability to provide the growth engine? I’ve never believed that you go raise taxes on those that have been successful that are paying in, taking away from them, so that you just hand out and give to someone else.

Here’s the video:

But what Eric Cantor wants to do is take from the poor and give hand outs to the richest. This is a reverse redistribution of wealth. Cantor is literally saying that Republicans will take more money from the poor and middle class so that the wealthy can have even more money to sit on. This IS what class warfare actually looks like. Food, health care, and gas prices are still rising while wages are falling.

The poor and the middle class are already facing deep cuts to virtually every domestic program that benefits them because of the Ryan Budget, and now Republicans intend to strip them of any money that they have left so that the wealthy can that extra lobster feast, that extra private jet and yacht, that extra mansion, etc… So while the Mitt Romney’s of the world get richer, the rest of us have to pay for their greed at the expense of feeding our children, taking care of our grandparents, paying our bills, getting an education, and just about anything else that money is actually important for. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Making sure the wealthy do not have to pay taxes on their huge mansions is more important to Republican lawmakers than feeding poor children. And they say abortion is cruel. Try starving to death.

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April 13, 2012 · 3:49 PM

Tennessee Senate Approves Bill To Warn Students That Hand-Holding Is A ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’

What the heck is wrong with GOP legislators?

Think Progress

Like any state legislature dealing with 8 percent unemployment and thousands of itsresidents facing disenfranchisement, the Tennessee Senate is targeting the menace of underage hand-holding.

Last week, the Senate passed SB 3310, a bill to update the state’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum to define holding hands and kissing as “gateway sexual activities.” Just one senator voted against the legislation; 28 voted in favor.

Since the bill specifically bans teachers from “demonstrating gateway sexual activity”, educators would be prohibited from even demonstrating what hand-holding is. Breaking these laws could result in a lawsuit, as Hunter from Daily Kos notes:

If your teacher teaches you anything about sex that isn’t specifically on the approved curriculum, like demonstrating “holding hands” for the class instead of quietly talking about the dangers it poses, they can be sued.

Still, this anti-hand-holding push may only be the second-worst bill passed in Tennessee this month. Nearly a century after the Volunteer State played host to the Scopes Monkey Trial, the legislature has now enacted a new law allowing educators to teach creationism alongside evolution.

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April 9, 2012 · 12:45 AM

Happy Easter From The GOP, Folks

How do Republicans sleep at night?

The Raw Story

This Easter Sunday, the NY Times has this Jason DeParle story on red states shredding welfare safety nets and the people who keep falling through them.

Faced with flat federal financing and rising need, Arizona is one of 16 states that have cut their welfare caseloads further since the start of the recession — in its case, by half. Even as it turned away the needy, Arizona spent most of its federal welfare dollars on other programs, using permissive rules to plug state budget gaps.

The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow.

Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.

Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”

To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.”

And as any conservative can tell you, this is working 100% as intended.  If those on welfare turn to crime, then it’s clearly permissible to cut welfare even further to stop coddling these criminals, and then of course pass those savings through tax cuts on to the Almighty Job Creators, who will then certainly create more jobs and uplift these broken souls back into society.  Any time now, those jobs will be just pouring out.  Yep.

Of course without that vital last part, it becomes and endless conveyor belt to transfer wealth to the wealthy and drive the poor into other states (preferably blue ones) where they become somebody else’s problem.  Meanwhile, red states like Arizona get to claim they’ve cut welfare rolls and that the rest of America needs to follow their success.

Meanwhile, the expensive private prison conglomerates designed to incarcerate the increasingly desperate among us costing taxpayers far more per person than the welfare did in the first place is beside the point, that money’s well spent because we’re tough on crime.  Certainly the GOP is licking their chops at the latest iteration of the House GOP budget, turning safety net programs into block grants they can raid for even more tax cuts and wealth transfer.  And if the GOP gets control, guess what’s happening to these programs in the future?

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the top House Republican on budget issues, calls the current welfare program “an unprecedented success.” Mitt Romney, who leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would place similar restrictions on “all these federal programs.” One of his rivals, Rick Santorum, calls the welfare law a source of spiritual rejuvenation.

“It didn’t just cut the rolls, but it saved lives,” Mr. Santorum said, giving the poor “something dependency doesn’t give: hope.”

As in “hope God chose you to be rich, because otherwise you’re screwed.”  Happy Easter Hunger Games from the GOP.  Don’t worry, when you die, your suffering will be rewarded in the next life.  Oh wait, it won’t because you were poor and wasted your life so you obviously sinned, so it’s okay if we kick your face in a few more times.

Like I said, working as intended.

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March 12, 2012 · 12:04 AM

Republicans Reaping What They’ve Sown – And It Ain’t Pretty

Mario Piperni

I don’t often agree with David Brooks, but he’s got this one right.

All across the nation, there are mainstream Republicans lamenting how the party has grown more and more insular, more and more rigid. This year, they have an excellent chance to defeat President Obama, yet the wingers have trashed the party’s reputation by swinging from one embarrassing and unelectable option to the next: Bachmann, Trump, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum.

But where have these party leaders been over the past five years, when all the forces that distort the G.O.P. were metastasizing? Where were they during the rise of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck? Where were they when Arizona passed its beyond-the-fringe immigration law? Where were they in the summer of 2011 when the House Republicans rejected even the possibility of budget compromise? They were lying low, hoping the unpleasantness would pass.

Unfortunately for Brooks and his fellow conservatives, it’s a little late to be grumbling now. The current state of Republican decadence has been decades in the making going back to Reagan. It built up steam under the presidency of the hapless George W. and maxed out at crazy stupid with the election of Barack Obama.

Now that Republicans have successfully alienated immigrants, Hispanics, non-Christians, minorities and women, there aren’t enough millionaires and 65 year old dumb white guys to keep the GOP off life support for too much longer. The party of the Koch brothers, Limbaugh and Fox News are now reaping what they’ve sown for all these years.

Republicans are running a pathetic clown show and they have only themselves to blame because…

Leaders of a party are supposed to educate the party, to police against its worst indulgences, to guard against insular information loops. They’re supposed to define a creed and establish boundaries. Republican leaders haven’t done that.

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