Tag Archives: 113th United States Congress

January 6, 2013 · 7:54 AM

Sunday Talk: New and improved

This just about sums up today’s guest list on the Sunday talk shows…

Daily Kos

When Vice President Joe Biden successfully (?) negotiated a bill to stave off fiscal disaster (for a couple of months, at least), it really was a big fucking deal.

After all, the 112th Congress—arguably the worst Congress in history—wasn’t exactly known for its bipartisanship; yet the bill ultimately passed the House and Senate with support from both parties.

Unfortunately, that same bipartisan spirit didn’t help the victims of Hurricane Sandy or domestic violence.

But, no worries.

The 112th Congress is now a thing of the past, and the 113th Congress looks poised to finally solve the nation’s problems—by repealing Obamacare, hating on teh gheys, ending birthright citizenship, and taking additional hostages.

Morning lineup:

Meet the Press: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Deficit Commission Co-Chairs Alan Simpson (R) and Erskine Bowles (D); Roundtable: Sen. Angus King (I-ME), Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Vice Chair of the NRSC Carly Fiorina and E.J. Dionne (Washington Post).Face the Nation: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ); Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); Rep.Rick Nolan (D-MN); Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ); Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA); Roundtable:David Sanger (New York Times) and Rana Foroohar (TIME).

This Week: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND); Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-TX); Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR); Roundtable: George Will(Washington Post), Greta Van Susteren (Fox News), Gwen Ifill (PBS), Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Jonathan Karl (ABC News).

Fox News Sunday: Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD); Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH); Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX); Roundtable: Brit Hume (Fox News), Nina Easton (Fortune), Bill Kristol(Weekly Standard) and Charles Lane (Washington Post).

State of the Union: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND); Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC); Neera Tanden (Center for American Progress); Stephen Moore (Wall Street Journal); Dana Bash (CNN); Jackie Calmes(New York Times); Reliable Sources: Dana Bash (CNN); Jonathan Weisman (New York Times); Tim Carney (Washington Examiner); Ana Marie Cox (The Guardian); Dave Marash (Formerly of Al-Jazeera); Thomas Mann (Brookings Institute); Norman Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute).

The Chris Matthews Show: Bob Woodward (Washington Post); Michael Duffy (TIME);Gloria Borger (CNN); Joy Reid (MSNBC).

Fareed Zakaria GPS: Ian Bremmer (Eurasia Group); Richard Haas (Council on Foreign Relations); For,er State Department Official Anna-Marie Slaughter; Lionel Barber(Financial Times); Anatole Kaletsky (London Times); Londson School of Economics Prof.Fawaz Gerges; UN and Arab League Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.

Up with Chris Hayes: Steve Ellis (Taxpayers for Common Sense); Victim of Hurricane Sandy Fran O’Connor; Ben Jealous (NAACP); Esther Armah (WBAI-FM); Tio Hardiman (Violence Interruptor Initiative); Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

Evening lineup:

60 Minutes will feature: a report on the fate many newspapers face as the Internet becomes the source of almost instantaneous news (preview); a report on “design thinking”—incorporating human behavior into design (preview); and, an interview with Lionel Messi, considered the best soccer player in the world (preview).

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January 4, 2013 · 12:10 AM

House Republicans Snub Sandy Victims to Try and Repeal Obamacare for the 34th Time

bachmann-cantor

We can already get a sense of what the 113th Congress more of the same on the GOP side.

 

Earlier today in Twitter World:

At noon today, I introduced the first bill of the 113th Congress to repeal Obamacare in its entirety.

My response:

@MicheleBachmann: The definition of “crazy” – repeating the same thing over and over expecting different results…

PoliticusUSA

With House Republicans taking heat over not passing the Hurricane Sandy disaster relief bill, Michele Bachmann introduced the first bill of the new Congress to repeal Obamacare.

[...]

House Republicans have voted on zero actual job creation bills (disguising a tax cut as job creation doesn’t count), but they have voted on repealing Obamacare 33 times in the past two years. It is a certainty that Bachmann’s bill will come to the House floor, and the House will vote to repeal Obamacare for the 34th meaningless time.

It would be easy to pick on Bachmann’s priorities, but she is just a symptom of the larger disease. House Republicans don’t care about the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Gov. Chris Christie specifically blamed John Boehner for the bill not being brought to the floor, when the person he really should have blamed was Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Cantor is the loudest and the most powerful GOP voice in the House behind the idea that disaster relief should be offset by spending cuts. InSeptember 2011, Cantor wanted a 40% cut in funding for first responders in exchange for disaster relief. Cantor has a long history of disaster relief hypocrisy. The fact that he chose to call out Boehner instead of the right wing billionaires’ best boy reveals a lot about both Chris Christie and who really controls the Republican Party.

If House Republicans actually cared about the victims of Sandy, disaster relief would have been the first bill introduced today. Instead the nation was given another cheap stunt that is designed to do nothing but waste more time on another meaningless debate and vote that will score ideological points with the right wing zealots who still believe that Obamacare is the root of all evil.

As far as the House is concerned, it is business as usual for the least popular Congress of all time.

Rachel Maddow sums it up here…

 

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