The Big Con
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Governing on Empty
December 21st, 2011
The Senate, having struck its compromise, has gone home. The House, controlled by delusional Republicans, has gone home. Payroll taxes are slated to rise, and unemployment insurance is set to expire before they return in January. The compromise wasn’t just between the two parties in the Senate, apparently. According to Wednesday’s Washington Post, House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor met with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell on Friday and told him they’d get the votes to pass the two-month extension deal he’d worked out with Harry Reid. But Boehner, who is turning out to be the weakest speaker since the House was first gaveled to order in 1789, couldn’t hold his troops, whose caucus meetings, by numerous accounts, increasingly resemble the pep rallies of cults that have lost all feel for how other humans think.
Featured Issues
Battling Messages: Democrats Need to Enter the Fray
By Digby
March 23rd, 2011
New polling with the same results:
more »
The GOP Payroll Tax Plan Does So Stink
December 1st, 2011
No doubt Republicans know the fight over extending the payroll tax is one they could lose. Thus, they've pivoted away from opposing the extension, and have presented a plan of their own — one that Timothy Noah says the Democrats should be willing to work with because it "doesn't stink."
Well, in my experience, just because you can't smell something doesn't mean it doesn't sink. Some things "pass the smell test" because of a faulty sniffer; not because they don't stink. And the GOP's payroll tax plan does so stink.
... more »
GOP’S Dirty Air Hit List Sacrifices Americans’ Health
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) recently announced his legislative priorities for the upcoming months, and they consist of the same old reckless attacks on health and environmental safeguards for all Americans. Creating an apocalyptically titled hit list of his "Top 10 Job-Destroying Regulations," Cantor takes aim at an astonishing 12 clean air safeguards, and five other labor, environmental, and health care standards. But problems with basic arithmetic are the least of the concerns with this "top 10" list. The House Republican dirty air hit list reflects a baseless and ideological tirade against clean air protections that would put Americans' lives at risk, while doing nothing to create jobs. American families cannot afford to see these clean air standards rolled back.... more »
The Case
Why We Call It "The Big Con"
Conservative government during the past few years has failed—even some conservatives acknowledge that. But the problem is not just that conservatism has failed to live up to its promise; it is that conservatism cannot live up to its promisemore »
Conservatism: Flawed By Design
Inherent ideological flaws cripple the ability of conservatives to govern:
The Facts
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
How do you make indefinite detention without trial work alongside the 5th Amendment in the land of the not so free?
Simple - you declare the US a war zone.
Any illusions you may have about living in a red, white and blue constitutional democracy have vapourised.
This dictatorship thing is easy peasy.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus
Habeas corpus (Latin: "you may have the body")[1] is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention, that is, detention lacking sufficient cause or evidence. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations. more »
The News
Joe Manchin's oddly inspiring debate performance
October 19th, 2010
Florida Republican: Put Immigrants in "Camps"
August 13th, 2010
The Case
Jesus Versus The Gop
There has never been a more loudly Christian group of presidential candidates than this primary season’s GOP contenders. From the start, the campaign has been an exercise in Christian one-upmanship. The Republican strategy — loudly proclaiming one’s Christian faith, while attacking Obama as an agent of secular evil, if not actually Satan himself – is right out of the Fox News playbook. As someone who has spent many happy hours studying Christian theology, from Origen to Hans Kung, as well as modern scholarship about Jesus, I supposed I should be pleased by this eruption of holy fervor among the Republican candidates for the highest office in the land. But there’s just one little problem. Jesus would have been appalled by the whole pack of them. We do not know very much about the historical Jesus. But everything we know indicates that the carpenter from Galilee would not have been pleased to learn that this pack of coldhearted, sanctimonious, wealth-exalting politicians were claiming to be his followers.more »
The GOP's Nonsensical Attempt to Paint Elizabeth Warren as a Hypocrite
George Washington was a hypocrite. O.K., that’s not what I believe. But it’s apparently what Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts believes. Mr. Brown, in his campaign for re-election, is going all out on the proposition that Elizabeth Warren is a big hypocrite. According to Brian McGrory, a columnist at The Boston Globe, Mr. Brown, a Republican, “seems to be fuming that his main Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, has done pretty well for herself financially.” You see, Ms. Warren has been crusading to help the endangered middle class — but she herself is a well-paid Harvard professor, who would end up paying higher taxes as a result of the policies she advocates. See the hypocrisy? Neither do I. I’ve written about this before; somehow the notion has entered our politics that supporting a cause that isn’t in your personal financial interest makes you a hypocrite. It’s really bizarre.more »
Latest from our Bloggers
feb
7
2012
1:51 pm
1:51 pm
feb
6
2012
3:20 pm
3:20 pm
I wrote earlier that Newt Gingrich's campaign is one of mutually assured destruction for the GOP. No one, I wrote, has to lift a finger to destroy Newt Gingrich. Just stand back, give him room, and he'll do it himself. The thing is, you want to stand way, way back — otherwise Newt's liable to try and take you with him. The problem for the GOP is that they can't put enough daylight between themselves and Newt. And even if they manage to do that, they're still stuck with Mitt.
The latest self-destruction of Newt Gingrich will be televised. If he's able to carry on after losing the Nevada Primary to Mitt Romney, and make good on his promise to campaign all the way to the convention in Tampa, we can look forward to more performances like his post-Iowa temper tantrum, his post-Florida flame-out, and his bizarre concession-speech-cum-press-conference after Nevada.
feb
3
2012
2:53 pm
2:53 pm
Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.
This should eliminate all doubts about how little some members of Congress understand about federal finances.
As Dana Milbank explains in his column from today's The Washington Post, eight House Republican freshman made a grandstanding play this week to get public attention and credit for something that makes no financial sense whatsoever.
First, the eight representatives didn't spend all of the amount they got in 2011 from the House of Representatives to pay for staff and other expenses in their Washington and district offices. They correctly claimed that they saved taxpayers money by doing so.
But second, the representatives then said that they wanted to return the unspent money to the Treasury and designate that the funds be used to reduce the national deb. They clearly felt that they should get big props for doing this.
This is wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.more »
feb
2
2012
3:34 pm
3:34 pm
MItt Romney is taking a lot of heat for saying that he's "not concerned about the very poor." To be fair, he also said he's not concerned about the very rich either. Lucky for him the feeling isn't mutual that that side of the economic divide. According to recent FEC filings, the very rich are very concerned with Mitt Romney's campaign for his party's presidential nomination. And why shouldn't they be concerned? After all, some of them are Mitt's friends and former colleagues.
feb
2
2012
6:10 am
6:10 am
The following was originally published at RobertReich.org
One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.” more »
feb
1
2012
11:39 am
11:39 am
Today, the nation is abuzz over Mitt Romney bluntly cold comment: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there."
This is not a slip of the tongue. This is what he believes. We know, because he said it before.
In October, I reported here that Romney made this exact same argument while stumping in Iowa: "In our country, the people who need the help most are not the poor, who have a safety net, not the rich, who are doing just fine, but the middle class."
Why would Romney repeatedly make this claim? Here's my analysis from October:more »
jan
31
2012
8:44 am
8:44 am
On the menu this morning:
- MORNING MESSAGE: China Cheats—Push May Come To Shove
- Trade Battles with China
- Florida Vote: From SuperPACs to Super Crash
- More Mortgage Fraud Settlement Fears
- Freddie Mac's Bets against Homeowners
- Unemployment Compensation Fight
- Breakfast Sides
jan
30
2012
11:40 pm
11:40 pm
Last week the political world was all agog over Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article about the administration in which he revealed that after three long years of GOP obstruction the president resigned himself to the fact that post-partisanship wasn't going to work out. It may have shifted something fundamental --- for the first time people in the Village are questioning whether their beloved bipartisanship is the only way the government can function.
Lizza reminds people that Obama had always held a starry-eyed view of the various divides in the American political culture (a concern that was so aggressively attacked by his supporters in the 2008 race that those of us who raised it were left with permanent scars from the experience.) Indeed, in this respect, Lizza's analysis seems stale to me --- it's just that it apparently took four years for it to be allowed to be aired publicly. Still, it's an important piece of political journalism that may turn out to be politically significant: more »
