Category Archives: GOP

May 16, 2013 · 5:40 AM

Four Better Ways To Spend The $55 Million Wasted On Votes To Repeal The Affordable Care Act

The irony seems to escape the GOP and their sycophants  in Congress.  They’ve implemented “sequestration” to curb superfluous spending yet waste $55 million dollars on trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act thirty-seven times…

Think Progress

For the 37th time since 2011, House Republicans will hold a vote to repeal Obamacare on Thursday, bringing the total cost of all of their failed repeal votes to roughly $55 million in taxpayer money, according to one estimate.

Last year, CBS News calculated that the number of hours spent on 33 repeal votes — then roughly 80 hours, or two full work weeks — cost taxpayers an estimated $48 million. Since then, Republicans have held three more votes (another $4.5 million) and will add another $1.5 million with their latest.

At a time when lawmakers have implemented $85 billion in across-the-board cuts on top of$1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, no dollar can be spared. And the country has serious health-related needs that could use funding. Here are some better health care uses for the more than $50 million these symbolic votes against the Affordable Care Act have wasted:

1. Restore cuts from sequestration to Title X family planning programs and Title V maternal and child health services. The National Women’s Law Center calculates that a 5 percent cut to the budgets of each program will reduce them by $15 million and $32.5 million, respectively. Rather than voting to repeal a bill that expands women’s access to preventative services, the House could use the money to expand them.

2. Double the Department of Justice’s budget for sexual assault services, which has currently been authorized a $50 million budget. The program gives money to states so that they can support rape crisis centers and other nongovernmental organizations that provide direct intervention, core services, and other assistance to the victims of sexual assault. Current funding is inadequate, as some states receive less than $300,000 and many programs lack the resources to meet victims’ needs.

3. Grant a request for $50 million to train 5,000 new mental health professionals as part of a new initiative to expand mental health treatment and prevention services. This proposal came in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to address gaps in the mental health system.

4. Help states implement paid leave policies. President Obama included a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund in his 2011 budget to provide start-up support for states that want to enact paid leave for workers. More than 40 percent of workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, heading to work when they or their family members experience an illness, but this funding could help give them a better option.

The current Congress is on track to be the most unproductive since the 1940s, but still has time to hold votes that won’t result in actual legislative change. There are many other priorities lawmakers could focus on instead and better ways to spend taxpayer dollars.

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May 13, 2013 · 5:42 PM

Bobby Jindal To GOP: ‘It’s Time To Get Over’ Election Loss

Governor Bobby Jindal’s poll numbers may be low in Louisiana, but once again he’s giving his fellow Republicans some sage advice.  The last time he gave the GOP advice, they were not too happy with his choice of words.

The Huffington Post

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) spoke at a GOP dinner in New Hampshire on Friday, urging his fellow Republicans to “get over” last year’s electoral defeats and instead focus on reassessing party priorities ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

“We lost an election that we probably should have won,” Jindal said at a GOP fundraiser in Manchester, N.H., according to ABC News. “It’s time to get over it. … I think we can win elections by sticking to our principles, but I do think we need to make some changes and I think we need to think seriously about where we go from here.”

He continued, “We spent too much time last year criticizing the other side without saying what we were going to do instead, without saying what we were for.”

The Republican governor made headlines last year when he called on members of his party to end “dumbed-down conservatism” and “stop being the stupid party.” During his New Hampshire speech, Jindal offered an explanation for those remarks.

“What I meant by that was we’ve got to present thoughtful policy solutions to the American people — not just bumper stickers, not just 30-second solutions,” Jindal said, according to the Washington Times. “We have to have the confidence and the courage in our convictions and show them that our ideas will benefit them.”

Jindal has frequently been floated as a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. However, he has brushed off the speculation, insisting that it is too early to wade into the race.

“Anybody on the Republican side even thinking or talking about running for president in 2016, I’ve said, needs to get their head examined,” Jindal said during a February appearance on “Fox and Friends.” “And the reason I say that is, we’ve lost two presidential elections in a row, we need to be winning the debate of ideas– then we’ll win elections.”

 

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May 2, 2013 · 1:08 PM

MSNBC’s Brzezinski And Heilemann Blast ‘Childish Purely Political’ GOP

TFC wrote about Sen. Pat Toomey’s “revelation” here.

Mediaite

On Thursday, Morning Joe took on Sen. Pat Toomey‘s (R-PA) remark about how many Republicans opposed background checks because they didn’t want to be seen helpingPresident Obama. The roundtable criticized the GOP for being “childish” about an important issue, making their moves based purely on politics. It may work now, John Heilemannargued, but it’ll do the party long-term damage.

“In the end, we didn’t [pass the measure] because our politics have become so polarized,” Toomey said. “There were people on my side who did not want to be perceived to be helping something that the president wanted to accomplish, simply because it’s the president who wants to accomplish it.”

“You would want to argue that that potentially couldn’t be happening” Mika Brzezinski remarked. “And that, potentially on issue is as important as this, would not happen — that Republicans would not be so childish.”

Yet polling shows otherwise, she asserted, including among Republicans. It’s “purely political throughout,” Heilemann later added, noting that it’s just the latest development in what has been congressional Republicans’ strategy for some time: Opposing Obama.

“This feeds into this fundamental dynamic of the Republican Party right now,” he asserted. “The things that they do to try to thwart the president every turn do not hurt them particularly at the level of congressional politics. They will likely hold on to the House of Representatives in 2014, they may even make gains in the Senate in 2014. But they continue to do themselves long-term damage at the level of a national party because of the fact that 88 percent of people are in favor of this bill.”

Take a look, via MSNBC:

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April 25, 2013 · 6:47 PM

Mother Jones: Frank Luntz Calls Right-Wing Talk Radio ‘Problematic’ For GOP

I would agree that right-wing talk radio is an Achilles heel for the GOP but they have bigger problems than that.  

They have an immigration problem, a gun problem, a people of color problem and a “stupid party” problem.  Not to mention their anti-abortion legislation problems.  Also the fact that the Tea Party won’t allow the GOP any amount of compromise not only stifles our government, it stifles the party as well.

Yep, what the GOP has…is a bad image problem.

TPM Livewire

GOP strategist Frank Luntz went off the record before a group of college Republicans earlier this month at the University of Pennsylvania to discuss the negative impact he believes right-walk talk radio has had on the GOP, Mother Jones reported Thursday.

“And they get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it’s really problematic,” Luntz said of right-wing talk-radio programs, according to a recording of the event. Luntz added that talk radio has been especially damaging to Sen. Marco Rubio’s immigration reform efforts.

“He’s getting destroyed,” Luntz said, “by Mark Levin, by Rush Limbaugh, and a few others. He’s trying to find a legitimate, long-term effective solution to immigration that isn’t the traditional Republican approach, and talk radio is killing him. That’s what’s causing this thing underneath. And too many politicians in Washington are playing coy.”

According to Mother Jones’ piece, written by David Corn, Luntz asked the audience to allow him to speak off the record, prompting one college newspaper reporter to switch off his device. But another student, Aakash Abbi, captured the sound bite on his iPhone.

Corn has built a reputation reporting on surreptitious recordings, starting with Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments and continuing with a secretly recorded Mitch McConnell campaign strategy meeting.

Listen to the audio and read Corn’s full piece here.

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April 17, 2013 · 2:53 PM

Republicans pull plug on Mark Sanford

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned“. ..

Politico

National Republicans are pulling the plug on Mark Sanford’s suddenly besieged congressional campaign, POLITICO has learned — a potentially fatal blow to the former South Carolina governor’s dramatic comeback bid.

Blindsided by news that Sanford’s ex-wife has accused him of trespassing and concluding he has no plausible path to victory, the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

“Mark Sanford has proven he knows what it takes to win elections. At this time, the NRCC will not be engaged in this special election,” said Andrea Bozek, an NRCC spokeswoman.

Sanford is facing Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Clemson University administrator and sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, in a race that has grabbed the national spotlight.

The NRCC’s move comes hours after Tuesday night’s report by the Associated Press that Sanford’s ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, filed a court complaint accusing him of trespassing at her home in early February – which would be a violation of the terms of their divorce agreement.

Republicans said they were caught off guard by news of Jenny Sanford’s complaint. They worry other damaging revelations about Mark Sanford’s personal life that they aren’t aware of could come out in the coming weeks.

The NRCC has spent a nominal amount on the race on polling and other activities. But officials determined that devoting potentially millions more — which was under discussion — isn’t worth it.

“This is an unfortunate situation but this is what happens when candidates aren’t honest and withhold information,” said one GOP operative.

Continue reading here…

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March 7, 2013 · 6:04 PM

John McCain And Lindsey Graham Just Ripped Into Rand Paul On The Senate Floor

McCain Senate

Looks like there’s a battle brewing in Congress between the old guard and the new guard.

Business Insider

U.S. Sen. John McCain blasted fellow Republican Rand Paul on the Senate floor this morning for his 13-hour filibuster to block John Brennan‘s confirmation as CIA Director.

“Calm down, Senator,” McCain said, in an apostrophe to Paul. “The U.S. government cannot randomly target U.S. citizens.”

In his filibuster Wednesday, Paul criticized the White House over its drone policies, and for refusing to rule out military strikes against U.S. citizens on American soil.

McCain, a staunch foreign policy hawk, said Thursday that Paul’s warnings that the U.S. could target “Jane Fonda” or “people in cafes” bring the debate into the “realm of the ridiculous.”

“If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids,” McCain said, adding: “I don’t think what happened yesterday is helpful to the American people.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) echoed these criticisms, adding that he was “disappointed” in the 13 Republican Senators who supported Paul’s filibuster last night.

Graham later told reporters that he will vote to confirm Brennan as a result of the filibuster.

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January 26, 2013 · 11:12 AM

BIll Maher Obliterates the Republican Lie that Obama Hasn’t Created Any Jobs

PoliticusUSA

When Republican consultant David Avella tried to push the lie that Obama has not created any jobs, he was completely destroyed by Bill Maher and Howard Dean.

Here is the video:

David Avella of GOPAC tried to spread the Republican myth that Obama has not created any jobs, but Bill Maher called him out on it.

Maher said, “That’s not true. That’s just a lie. What are you talking about he hasn’t created any jobs?” Avella said that there are no net new jobs since he started his administration. Maher responded because he started from the hole, but Avella interrupted him and expressed the Republican point of view that it doesn’t matter how many jobs were lost before Obama took office. Maher said the Republican no net new jobs meme is categorically untrue.

Panelist Howard Dean jumped into the conversation and said, “This is like listening to Paul Ryan on the budget. It’s ridiculous. They were going like that. Finally, they leveled off. After what Bush did which was borrow us into oblivion. From the bottom of the recession, there’s about five or six million new jobs created under Barack Obama. Is it enough? No, we need to do more stuff. I think we ought to put the old campaign behind us and talk about the new one.” Maher built on Dean’s point, “Also this week, if Mitt Romney had been taking the oath this week, he would be taking credit now for the news we got this week. Housing starts are up. Stock market is way up. Unemployment claims are way down. He’s the worst socialist ever, this Obama.”

This idea that Obama hasn’t created any jobs is a favorite Republican lie. At the 2012 Democratic convention, former President Clinton took apart this falsehood, “The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95% of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the President’s jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here’s another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, Congressional Republicans zero.”

As of last fall, even if you count all of the job losses that continue to pile up before the president could implement his own policies, Obama still had a net job creation record of +325,000. Republicans try to claim that Obama has not created any jobs by including 2009 and saddling Obama with Bush job losses from the first day that he took office. The stimulus wasn’t passed and signed into law until February 2009, but it just so happens that the job losses in January 2009 were the worst in 34 years. Before Obama has even had two full weeks in office, the economy lost 540,000 jobs. Those job losses belong to George W. Bush, but Republicans put them on Obama in order to make their dubious jobs math work.

A more accurate assessment of Obama’s jobs record should begin 2010, when his policies were implemented. By that standard Obama has created over 5 million jobs. The truth is that no matter how you slice the numbers, Republicans are still clinging to a flat out lie that Obama hasn’t created any jobs.

Voters didn’t buy the Republican funny math during the 2012 election. They aren’t going to buy it in 2014 or 2016 either. Bill Maher and Howard Dean were right on the money to call this out.

Republicans still haven’t figured out that they are only fooling themselves with their bogus statistics. You can fool some of the people all of the time, especially if those people watch Fox News and vote Republican.

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January 18, 2013 · 12:05 AM

Republicans Brag They Won House Majority Because Of Gerrymandering

Loose lips sink ships -  is an American English idiom meaning “beware of unguarded talk”.

In this case it may very well sink the GOP’s nefarious and partisan gerrymandering efforts.

In law, intent is everything.  It will be interesting to see how the Courts look at this GOP revelation…

Think Progress

In a classic Kinsley gaffe, the Republican State Leadership Committee released a report boasting that the only reason the GOP controls the House of Representatives is because they gerrymandered congressional districts in blue states.

The RSLC’s admission came in a shockingly candid report entitled, “How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013″. It details how the group spent $30 million in the 2010 election cycle to sweep up low-cost state legislature races in blue states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Their efforts were so successful, in fact, that Republicans went from controlling both legislative chambers in 14 states before Election Day to 25 states afterward.

In turn, the new Republican majorities would be tasked with redrawing congressional districts for the 2012 election. “The rationale was straightforward,” the report reads. “Controlling the redistricting process in these states would have the greatest impact on determining how both state legislative and congressional district boundaries would be drawn.”

This effort paid off in spades. As the RSLC’s report concedes (and ThinkProgress hasdocumented extensively), a majority of Americans voted for Democratic congressional candidates on Election Day, but only through the miracle of gerrymandering did Republicans wind up controlling the House. From the report:

Farther down-ballot, aggregated numbers show voters pulled the lever for Republicans only 49 percent of the time in congressional races, suggesting that 2012 could have been a repeat of 2008, when voters gave control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Democrats.

But, as we see today, that was not the case. Instead, Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans. The only analogous election in recent political history in which this aberration has taken place was immediately after reapportionment in 1972, when Democrats held a 50 seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives while losing the presidency and the popular congressional vote by 2.6 million votes.

The report credits gerrymandered maps in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with allowing Republicans to overcome a 1.1 million popular-vote deficit. In Ohio, for instance, Republicans won 12 out of 16 House races “despite voters casting only 52 percent of their vote for Republican congressional candidates.” The situation was even more egregious to the north. “Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.”

Though party officials typically dance around the unseemly issue of gerrymandering, this report is surprisingly candid and unabashed. The RSLC, after all, is tasked with winning control of state legislatures in large part so they can redraw congressional maps to the GOP’s benefit after redistricting. Because most states allow partisan redistricting, its understandable that the RSLC would release a report boasting of its gerrymandering success that “paved the way to Republicans retaining a U.S. House majority in 2012.”

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January 5, 2013 · 1:28 PM

Undeterred By Court Order, Iowa Official Tries Again To Push Through Voter Purge

Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz

Many have suggested that the Republican Party is headed toward obscurity and insignificance.

This story and all the efforts at voter suppression, the war on women and other nefarious measures to insure that conservative ideology is dominant national policy, will be the main reason for the demise of the GOP…

Think Progress

When Secretary of State Matt Schultz attempted to purge voters from the rolls in advance of the November 2012 election, a county judgetemporarily blocked the move, finding that the rules issued by Schultz created fear and uncertainty and could deter legitimate voters. But that risk of voter suppression hasn’t stopped Schultz from proposing a new slightly tweaked rule to remove registered voters in the name of alleged voter fraud.

The rule would allow Schultz’s office to challenge the legitimacy of registered voters who are listed as noncitizens in the Department of Transportation database. Citing a DOT list of some 3,000 registered voters labeled noncitizens, Schultz said, “I have to do something. I can’t just sit back and do nothing when we know people are taking advantage of the system.”

But Schultz’s testimony just last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that he doesn’t know people are taking advantage of the system. When probed by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) for evidence of voter fraud, Schultz cited just six arrests — not convictions – out of 1.6 million votes cast. And this was after a special agent was designated to specifically target voter fraud.

As for the list of 3,000 people, that claim was easily dismissed by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund’s Nina Perales during the same hearing:

Secretary Schultz … said he had identified 3,500 noncitizens using the driver’s license rolls. He did not. He identified 3,500 people who were noncitizens at the time that they obtained their driver’s licenses. And we know that since that time and before they registered to vote, the overwhelming majority and perhaps all of them have become naturalized citizens. So at this point, anyone who undertakes to accuse people of non-citizenship based on driver’s licenses should be on notice that this is not correct and should not be done. It’s fundamentally unfair.

Attempts to prove voter fraud nationwide have fallen similarly short, with less than 20 instances of fraud charges offered in most states. Florida GOP officials have even publiclyadmitted voter suppression was the goal of that state’s aggressive and inaccurate purge.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are also arguing that Schultz cannot implement a purge without going through the state legislature. The ruling that blocked Schultz’s last attempt said that, at the very least, Schultz should have gone through the proper rulemaking procedure that allows for public input instead of going forward on his own. Schultz is now going through that procedure, but the court could still hold this process insufficient.

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December 30, 2012 · 2:35 PM

The GOP’s Five Greatest Disappointments In 2012

The GOP’s Five Greatest Disappointments In 2012

This couldn’t have happened to a more deserving group of fanatics…

TPMDC

This was a bad year for the Republican Party. What started out as a year of hope that they would return to power ended in a series of profound disappointments that left party strategists debating whether the GOP would become a permanent minority unless they change course.

Here are the party’s five most disappointing moments.

1. Payroll Tax Cut Defeat

The year began with a standoff between President Obama and House Republicans that split the GOP and ended in a clear defeat for the party. Worse, it placed the mantle of working class tax breaks in the hands of a Democrat.

Obama demanded a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut; House GOP leaders made a public showing of their resistance, insisting on offsets but resisting ideological compromise until the bitter end. Obama stood firm, as did House Republicans — until Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly called on them to give up the game.

On Feb. 13, they did, and agreed to extend the tax break without paying for it. It would prove to be a turning point in how Obama dealt with the GOP.

2. Nominating A Presidential Candidate They Disliked

The GOP’s presidential field was widely seen as weak. The race came down to two unpopular relics of the past (Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum) and a former blue stater who once embraced abortion rights, gun control and planted the seeds for Obamacare (Mitt Romney.)

After a series of embarrassing moments from the other candidates involving moon colonies,anti-porn crusades and the like, Republicans finally decided they had nowhere to go but Romney, crowing him their nominee on May 30. Conservatives never really warmed up to the former Massachusetts governor, and many lamented the selection. But, they consoled themselves, at least he had what it took to throw Barack Obama out of office.

3. Obamacare Upheld

On June 28, the Supreme Court broke Republicans’ hearts when it refused to strike down Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

It came at a time when Republican leaders were openly preparing for victory in quashing the Affordable Care Act. Even more depressing: the deciding vote in the 5-4 ruling came from one-time conservative hero, Chief Justice John Roberts, whose vote the right had mostly taken for granted. It left conservatives flummoxed and eager to understand his betrayal.

Now their only hope for repealing Obamacare was to defeat Obama.

4. Obama Reelected

On Nov. 6, Barack Obama was re-elected in a swift and brutal victory, sending shock waves through conservatives who were convinced they had the election in the bag. Mitt Romney was among those convinced he’d win, his campaign aides said, until well into election night.

Also distressing: Senate Democrats gained two seats against all odds. And while a redistricting advantage helped Republicans keep the House majority, Democratic candidates for the lower chamber picked up more votes overall than GOP candidates.

It was a crushing blow for many reasons. The America that much of the Republican base knew and loved seemed to be gone, replaced by a new America more diverse, young and liberal. The day of reckoning had arrived.

5. Taxes Are Going Up

The fix came in with the election results, and Republicans were immediately forced to come to grips with the fact that taxes are about to go up. And, because they control the House, there’s no easy way to dodge accountability.

The path toward acceptance has been ugly and painful, and the dilemma on their defining issue unenviable. If Republican strike a deficit-reduction deal with Obama, they’ll devastate and demoralize their base. If they scuttle a deal, they’ll face the wrath of a public that intends to blame them for driving the country off the proverbial fiscal cliff.

All this amid a backdrop of top GOP voices desperately urging their party to reverse course on core issues from immigration to gay rights — or risk being driven into the political wilderness.

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