United States Congress 5: Still Looking for a Spine

[AmazonGrace]

Watching from the outside, I  still don't get it. I'm white and from a tiny town but not sure how that is supposed to make sexual assault, corruption and discrimination of minorities not matter.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

On 9/26/2018 at 7:00 AM, AmazonGrace said:

The United States will become one of the corrupt rogue countries 

WTAF, @AmazonGrace, this is truly some Putin-level shit.  "Orrin Hatch is trying to extend Trump’s pardon power to include state crimes which currently threaten his family and close associates." How would such a law even be legally possible? 

And this article? DEVIN NUNES’S FAMILY FARM IS HIDING A POLITICALLY EXPLOSIVE SECRET -- mind blown!  Fascinating.  Guess the cat's out of the bag, Devin.   I have a feeling that Devin is going to end up in the ETTD™ category (Everything Trump Touches Dies), when he began as a regular conservative with a moderate immigration stance.  

[CTRLZero]

What an enlightening Esquire magazine article on the Nunes family farm.  It's interesting how ICE has left that little area of the U.S. alone, despite Devin Nunes' harsh anti-immigration stance.  I've been reading articles on lack of harvest workers, and I've mentioned elsewhere that my friend has had to put his soybean crop in storage (due to tariffs), so Nunes and Co. should in all fairness join the crowd of people facing hardship due to Trump's policies.  I'll be interested in if there is any follow up on this story.

[fraurosena]

While everyone was looking the other way, the House saw its way clear to another tax cut for the rich. Devious and surreptitious sneaks. Including the idiot Dems that also voted for the extra tax cut.

Under the Fog of Kavanaugh, House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts

Quote

With attention fixed on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a new $3.1 trillion tax cut on Friday. The vote was 220 to 191, including three Democrats.

The down-to-the-wire 2017 tax act passed in late December contained a mix of permanent and temporary changes that had to result in a net increased cost that fell within a structural limit of $1.5 trillion that allowed the Senate to approve the bill with a simple majority.

The House’s new bill takes effect starting in 2025, and would add $600 billion to the national debt within the next decade, and then $3.2 trillion in the 10 years after that, according to Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center.

Despite the House vote, it is unlikely the Senate will take up the legislation. The first round of tax cuts landed with a thud, with even a leaked Republican National Committee poll—reported on by Bloomberg News—showing American voters thought it benefited “large corporations and rich Americans” by an overall 2-to-1 margin and the same margin among independent voters.

Without special rules in place, the Senate would vote under normal procedures, which can require 60 senators’ votes to pass a bill that is heavily opposed.

 

[fraurosena]

More shitty stuff from the Repugs, because, why not?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up: "‘I don’t think their mother breast-fed them’: GOP senator attacks Democrats who oppose Kavanaugh"

Spoiler

Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R) opened his appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Tuesday with the tiniest, frailest of olive branches for his Democratic colleagues in the ongoing battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh.

“I think there are some Democrats in good faith . . . ” Kennedy, the junior senator from Louisiana, told Carlson from an echo-filled stairwell corridor of the Senate.

But.

“But I think [for] some of their colleagues, it isn’t about searching for the truth,” he continued. “It’s about winning. Just win, baby, win.”

Kennedy was referring to the Democrats' push for an extended FBI background investigation of Kavanaugh after Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist and professor in California, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a small gathering at a house in the 1980s when they were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied those claims.

Still, after a dramatic turn of events, an FBI investigation was reopened Friday. Since then, several Republican lawmakers have gone on the offensive, accusing Democrats of intentionally using claims against Kavanaugh to stall the nomination process.

On Tuesday, Kennedy found a willing audience in Fox News Channel talk show host Tucker Carlson, who set his brow in an intense furrow as Kennedy railed against the Democrats.

“These are people — I’m not gonna name names — but I’m not sure they have a soul,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think their mother breast-fed them.”

Carlson broke his serious expression and laughed.

“I think they went right to raw meat,” Kennedy concluded.

A representative from Kennedy’s office declined to comment on or clarify what the senator had meant.

It was only the second-most outraged Kennedy had seemed this week. He had appeared Monday on Fox News to angrily characterize Kavanaugh’s divisive nomination process as “an intergalactic freak show.”

“If you think this is about searching for the truth, you ought to put down the bong,” the lawmaker told host Martha MacCallum. “This is not about the truth. This is about gamesmanship and power, political politics.”

Other Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have also blanketed the airwaves with attacks on Democrats since the FBI investigation was called.

On Tuesday night, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) appeared on Fox News to demand that Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) apologize to Kavanaugh “for being part of a smear campaign that I haven’t seen for over 20 years in politics.”

At last week’s hearing, Kavanaugh snapped at Klobuchar when she asked whether he had ever drunk so much that he blacked out. Instead of answering the question, Kavanaugh parroted the question back at Klobuchar.

“I don’t know,” he said then. “Have you?”

On Wednesday morning, the office of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) retweeted a Daily Caller story about Kennedy’s remarks on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

However, the criticism paled in comparison to those of President Trump, who openly mocked Ford’s recollection of the alleged attack at a Mississippi rally Tuesday night. Trump’s aides had reportedly been trying to prevent such a riff, and the incident drew criticism the next day from three Republican senators — Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff. Flake (Ariz.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — who are seen to be the most likely swing votes on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

By Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy was back in the Senate halls, hammering the Democrats on Fox News. “I’m not prejudging the FBI report, but it’s time for the senators to be senators, for women to women up, for men to man up, and let’s vote,” Kennedy said.

 

 

[Audrey2]

17 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

You couldn't make this up: "‘I don’t think their mother breast-fed them’: GOP senator attacks Democrats who oppose Kavanaugh"

  Reveal hidden contents

Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R) opened his appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Tuesday with the tiniest, frailest of olive branches for his Democratic colleagues in the ongoing battle over the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh.

“I think there are some Democrats in good faith . . . ” Kennedy, the junior senator from Louisiana, told Carlson from an echo-filled stairwell corridor of the Senate.

But.

“But I think [for] some of their colleagues, it isn’t about searching for the truth,” he continued. “It’s about winning. Just win, baby, win.”

Kennedy was referring to the Democrats' push for an extended FBI background investigation of Kavanaugh after Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist and professor in California, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a small gathering at a house in the 1980s when they were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied those claims.

Still, after a dramatic turn of events, an FBI investigation was reopened Friday. Since then, several Republican lawmakers have gone on the offensive, accusing Democrats of intentionally using claims against Kavanaugh to stall the nomination process.

On Tuesday, Kennedy found a willing audience in Fox News Channel talk show host Tucker Carlson, who set his brow in an intense furrow as Kennedy railed against the Democrats.

“These are people — I’m not gonna name names — but I’m not sure they have a soul,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think their mother breast-fed them.”

Carlson broke his serious expression and laughed.

“I think they went right to raw meat,” Kennedy concluded.

A representative from Kennedy’s office declined to comment on or clarify what the senator had meant.

It was only the second-most outraged Kennedy had seemed this week. He had appeared Monday on Fox News to angrily characterize Kavanaugh’s divisive nomination process as “an intergalactic freak show.”

“If you think this is about searching for the truth, you ought to put down the bong,” the lawmaker told host Martha MacCallum. “This is not about the truth. This is about gamesmanship and power, political politics.”

Other Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have also blanketed the airwaves with attacks on Democrats since the FBI investigation was called.

On Tuesday night, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) appeared on Fox News to demand that Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) apologize to Kavanaugh “for being part of a smear campaign that I haven’t seen for over 20 years in politics.”

At last week’s hearing, Kavanaugh snapped at Klobuchar when she asked whether he had ever drunk so much that he blacked out. Instead of answering the question, Kavanaugh parroted the question back at Klobuchar.

“I don’t know,” he said then. “Have you?”

On Wednesday morning, the office of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) retweeted a Daily Caller story about Kennedy’s remarks on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

However, the criticism paled in comparison to those of President Trump, who openly mocked Ford’s recollection of the alleged attack at a Mississippi rally Tuesday night. Trump’s aides had reportedly been trying to prevent such a riff, and the incident drew criticism the next day from three Republican senators — Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff. Flake (Ariz.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — who are seen to be the most likely swing votes on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

By Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy was back in the Senate halls, hammering the Democrats on Fox News. “I’m not prejudging the FBI report, but it’s time for the senators to be senators, for women to women up, for men to man up, and let’s vote,” Kennedy said.

 

 

Hmm.... My mother breastfed me, and I think Kavenaugh is scum and unfit for service. While he might play the "youthful indiscretions" card, his temperment during the hearing is not consistent with a Supreme Court justice.

[GreyhoundFan]

Fuck you, Grasshole. "Grassley suggests absence of women on Judiciary due to committee’s heavy workload"

Spoiler

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters that the Senate Judiciary Committee’s inability to attract Republican women might be caused by its heavy workload, a remark the panel’s chairman tried to retract a few minutes later.

“It’s a lot of work — maybe they don’t want to do it,” Grassley told the Wall Street Journal, NBC News and other outlets, as he headed toward the Senate floor for a speech by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

The committee, which has turned into a partisan hotbed in the past five years, has never had a Republican woman serve on it, even as the Senate’s ranks have doubled from three to six female GOP senators in recent years.

That omission drew more scrutiny during the second round of hearings for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, during which committee Republicans hired a female prosecutor from Arizona to question Christine Blasey Ford about her allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 36 years ago.

Four of the 10 Democrats on Judiciary are women, including two former prosecutors, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.).

Senate’s seniority rules raise questions when presidential succession is at stake

Grassley was pulled off the Senate floor by an aide so that he could expand on his remarks, at which point he explained that the committee’s intense partisanship and heavy workload have made it a less glamorous post for any senator.

“We have a hard time getting men on the committee. Do you know that we have got four people that are on the committee because the leader asked them to be there? Because they couldn’t fill the seats up,” Grassley said in that follow-up interview, suggesting Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has had to practically beg several Republicans to sit on the contentious panel.

“It’s just a lot of work whether you’re a man or a woman,” Grassley added.

The 85-year-old chairman then predicted that at the start of next year, Republicans would get a woman on their side of the Judiciary Committee dais.

Asked if he was previously questioning female senators’ work commitment, Grassley said male senators actually had worse work habits. “On average, any woman in the United States Senate, whether they’re on Judiciary or any other committee, probably works harder than the average man,” he said.

Grassley then returned to the Senate floor, where a few minutes later Collins — with three Republican women sitting behind her — delivered a 44-minute speech outlining her support for Kavanaugh, the critical moment that has likely ensured his confirmation in a final vote Saturday.

He needs to be relieved of his "workload" immediately.

[Howl]

On 10/1/2018 at 5:27 PM, fraurosena said:

While everyone was looking the other way, the House saw its way clear to another tax cut for the rich. Devious and surreptitious sneaks. Including the idiot Dems that also voted for the extra tax cut.

Under the Fog of Kavanaugh, House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts

This Disney heiress lays out how these awesome tax cuts work.....for the rich and the super rich!  Super yachts, anyone?  She's awesome and gives a few details I wasn't aware of: 

 

[fraurosena]

Remember that horrible racial slur the presidunce likes to use for her? Well...

It looks like she's setting herself up to run in 2020.

[Howl]

But, you know, "science", who knows if you can trust (DNA) science or if settled science is really true or even believable.  More research needs to be done!  That's Kellyanne's take, anyway. 

You know, the same science used to reliably convict those who leave it behind at the crime scene. 

I'll follow Devin Nunes' race with great interest.  The local paper endorsed his opponent and I'm hoping the Esquire article is getting a lot of coverage among his constituents. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

Sometimes your actions have unexpected consequences.

Susan Collins’ Alma Mater Want Her Honorary Doctorate Rescinded

Quote

Alumni and faculty from a small upstate New York university want to see Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) face consequences for her vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this month.

The former students and faculty are hoping to punish Collins in a symbolic way: by demanding St. Lawrence University, located in Canton, New York, rescind her honorary doctorate she received last year. More than 1,800 alumni and dozens of faculty members have signed onto a letter requesting such action be taken.

The university, with a modest 2,400 undergrad students currently registered for classes, bestowed an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters to Collins in 2017, in part due to her showing independence and reasoned thinking against her own party when the GOP had tried to tear apart the Affordable Care Act, according to reporting from CBS News. Collins cast one of a few Republican votes against the bill in the Senate.

But her recent vote in favor of Kavanaugh, who had faced accusations of sexually assaulting women in his younger years, warrants the revocation of her honorary degree, the letter signers said.

Collins “lack the integrity and commitment to justice that we expect from the St. Lawrence body,” the letter from alumni stated. SLU should revoke the degree “in support of truth and for all of the victims of sexual assault and violence, of which many of her fellow alumni and students have suffered.”

In a separate letter signed by faculty, staff at SLU said that they were prompted not by partisan politics, but by a call to eradicate “attitudes and behavior that normalize and condone sexual assault.”‘

“While our campus has come a long way in the years since Senator Collins was a student here to educate the campus population about sexual assault and harassment, and to adjudicate it fairly when it happens, we still have much hard work before us in and outside of the classroom.”

Collins has received two honorary degrees from SLU, and graduated from the university in 1975. The letter writers noted they are only focused on revoking the most recent honorary degree from the sitting senator.

Many criticized Collins for her vote in support of Kavanaugh, which she defended by saying she wasn’t convinced he was guilty of the assaults for which accusers said he had performed. But those who condemned her vote said those accusations, along with other issues, made Kavanaugh a bad nominee, not worth giving a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

“Based on his record and views on health care, abortion, and abuse of Presidential powers, Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination should have been rejected on the merits,” Maine’s Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett said earlier in the month. “Now, based on the credible allegations he faces and his recent testimony, it’s become clear that he does not possess the integrity or character to be appointed to a lifetime position as a Justice on our highest court.”

 

[AmericanRose]

Remind me again why Republicans vote the way they do? My dad is about to take early retirement, and I can't imagine he would be too pleased to lose money.

Quote

"It’s disappointing but it’s not a Republican problem," McConnell said of the deficit, which grew 17 percent to $779 billion in fiscal year 2018.

Mhm.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-calls-to-cut-social-security-medicare/ar-BBOtGyE?ocid=spartandhp

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, AmericanRose said:

Remind me again why Republicans vote the way they do? My dad is about to take early retirement, and I can't imagine he would be too pleased to lose money.

Mhm.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-calls-to-cut-social-security-medicare/ar-BBOtGyE?ocid=spartandhp

Whenever Republicans start talking about this shit, they usually do a song and dance routine about how if you are already receiving Social Security and Medicare,  or are within ten years or so being eligible, then your benefits won't change. Republicans are betting that the bulk of seniors and near-seniors are  are totally fine with screwing over younger generations as long as their own benefits are okay.

Sane people of all ages need to make a commitment to vote every single time, because the folks who love Faux News will crawl through broken glass in order to go vote.

[GreyhoundFan]

"All the ways House Democrats are planning to make Trump’s life miserable next year"

Spoiler

In their final pitch to voters before the November elections, Democratic leaders in Congress are avoiding impeachment talks, both of President Trump and newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

But House Democrats are talking a lot down the home stretch about other ways they could make Trump’s life difficult. And if Democrats win back the House of Representatives in the fall — which is likely — there’s a lot they could do short of the “i” word, from investigations into Trump and his allies to trying to get Trump’s tax returns.

Expect investigations into Trump to be a big part of a Democratic House for three reasons, said Andy Wright, a former House Democratic investigative staffer and current senior fellow at Just Security:

1. Trump and his Cabinet have departed from a number of good-government ethics norms.
2. Republicans in Congress have not been keen to investigate their president, noticeably less so than the last time Republicans held unified power, during the Bush era.
3. It’s politically advantageous for Democrats to be critical of Trump, who is one of the most historically unpopular presidents in modern times.

“So the amount of demand and lack of supply — [investigations] will just be off the charts when the Democrats get the House,” Wright said.

House Democratic leaders acknowledge all this investigating could come across as too political. “It’s very important we are not scattershot,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in an interview with Politico’s Playbook. “I’m not having any pound-of-flesh club.”

Still, it’s no wonder Democrats are already planning what they’ll do when they get the gavels. Here’s what they’re gearing up for:

1. Get Trump’s taxes

By now it’s clear that Trump isn’t going to release his tax returns unless he’s forced to. So forcing him will be the first thing House Democrats will do, promised Pelosi. “That’s the easiest thing in the world. That’s nothing,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board.

Some experts say she’s right, that Congress can get Trump’s tax return under power they gave themselves in the 1920s and strengthened in the 1970s in a fight with President Richard Nixon over his taxes.

It’s not clear if Congress could or would release those returns publicly, but there’s evidence that they contain information that could be politically damaging to Trump. The New York Times pieced together decades' worth of other financial documents to conclude that the president was given more than $400 million from his father, much of it through dodging tax rules.

2. Probe the nexus of Trump’s business decisions and his governing decisions

Along with being president, Trump simultaneously owns a real estate empire (though his sons oversee its day-to-day operations).

Ethics officials say the potential for conflicts of interest is high. It’s allowed his critics to question just how much his decision-making in governing is dependent on safeguarding his financial interests. Like, for example, why Trump won’t publicly criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There are serious and credible allegations the Russians may possess financial leverage over the president, including perhaps the laundering of Russian money through his businesses,” argued Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) in a Washington Post op-ed published Sunday. Schiff would likely take over the all-important House Intelligence Committee that can look into Russia election meddling and any ties to Trump. “It would be negligent to our national security not to find out,” Schiff wrote.

These kinds of investigations could shed light on the president’s wavering on whether to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the disappearance of a journalist. As The Post’s Philip Bump pointed out, at a 2015 campaign rally, Trump said this of the Saudis: “They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them?"

Democrats don’t even need to get into lengthy legal battles with Trump over his personal financial documents to look into this, Wright said. A lot of the president’s financial dealings are likely fingerprinted by third parties, like Deutsche Bank, which gave Trump hundreds of millions worth of loans as he tried to expand his business a decade ago.

3. Probe his Cabinet officials' potential conflicts of interest

Like Trump, some of his top public officials have also been accused of having their financial interests overlap with their jobs. In July, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sold millions of dollars of stock months after his ethics disclosure said he’d sell it. (He said it was an oversight.)

A number of Trump's current and former Cabinet officials have been accused of overspending on the taxpayer dime. Even Cabinet members forced to resign over ethical and spending issues seem like fair game to Democrats.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) would lead this as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He told Politico he’s already planning to investigate why Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, stayed on the job so long after numerous spending and ethical scandals.

4. Look into Trump’s Supreme Court justice

Did Kavanaugh lie to the Senate under oath about his drinking habits in high school? Or his involvement in stolen Democratic emails during the Bush White House? And what about whether he assaulted Christine Blasey Ford?

Kavanaugh hadn’t even been confirmed by the Senate when Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said he planned to investigate all of this if he got the gavel of the House Judiciary Committee.

On Nadler’s to-do list: interview dozens of potential witnesses to the multiple accusations against Kavanaugh, subpoena the FBI investigation into two of his accusers and look into whether there was any inappropriate communication between the White House and the FBI on what to look into.

Polls suggest he’s got support from Americans to undertake this unusual investigation into a sitting Supreme Court justice. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that half of Americans don’t think the Senate did enough to investigate whether Kavanaugh committed sexual misconduct in high school and college.

And one reason Nadler is likely already talking about this now: That same poll found 55 percent of independents say there should be further investigation of Kavanaugh.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Fuck you, McTurtle. I wish the people of Kentucky would stop foisting you on us: "McConnell: GOP may take another shot at repealing Obamacare after the midterms"

Spoiler

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that Republicans may try again to repeal the Affordable Care Act after the November midterm elections, reviving an issue that polls show has swung sharply in the Democrats’ favor.

In an interview with Reuters, McConnell said that his party’s failure last year to repeal the health-care law, also known as Obamacare, was “the one disappointment of this Congress from a Republican point of view.”

“If we had the votes to completely start over, we’d do it. But that depends on what happens in a couple weeks. . . . We’re not satisfied with the way Obamacare is working,” McConnell said.

Republicans are optimistic about their chances of maintaining control of the Senate next month, while polls suggest that a Democratic takeover of the House is increasingly likely.

The House last May narrowly passed a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, with 20 Republicans and every Democrat voting “no.” Two months later, a “skinny repeal” effort in the Senate failed by one vote as Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) opposed the measure. McCain died of brain cancer in August.

Polls show that health care is a top issue for voters, and many GOP candidates have begun campaigning on a longtime Democratic theme — protecting people with preexisting medical conditions — despite the fact that congressional Republicans have voted time and again to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which provides those protections.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday showed Democrats hold an 18-point advantage over Republicans on the question of which party voters trust to do a better job of handling health care. Eighty-two percent of respondents cited health care as either “one of the single most important issues” or “a very important issue” in their vote for Congress this year.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act remains popular with the Republican base, however, and McConnell’s remarks could be aimed at turning out core voters ahead of next month’s election.

Democrats immediately seized on McConnell’s comments, with the Democratic National Committee, the Senate Democratic campaign arm, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) releasing statements casting them as indicative of Republicans’ plans to do away with protections for preexisting conditions should they keep control of the Senate.

“Americans should make no mistake about it: If Republicans retain the Senate, they will do everything they can to take away families’ health care and raise their costs, whether it be eliminating protections for pre-existing conditions, repealing the health care law, or cutting Medicare and Medicaid,” Schumer said in a statement. “Americans should take Senator McConnell at his word.”

Pelosi said Republicans “keep blurting out the truth,” while Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in a tweet that McConnell’s statement underscores that Republicans “really are coming after your healthcare.”

“I mean like they are no kidding coming after all of it — pre-existing conditions, essential health benefits — mental health, privatizing the VA — Medicare, Medicaid,” Schatz said. “They believe that more healthcare equals less liberty or something. In any case we have to vote them out.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I know I'm repeating myself, but I despise McTurtle with the fire of a thousand suns: "What Mitch McConnell is up to is even worse than Democrats say"

Spoiler

Mitch McConnell may be one of the most cynical politicians in the history of this great land, but at times he can be remarkably candid, as he was in a recent interview with Bloomberg News. Asked about the fact that the deficit is now projected to be $779 billion this year and $1 trillion by 2020, McConnell said, “It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem.” The real cause of debt is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he argued, saying that imposing cuts to those programs “may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government.”

This was an unusual and extremely revealing comment — ordinarily, politicians say that if they are given unified control of government, then they’ll be able to do all the important things, not that the important things can only happen once they lose. But it’s being widely misinterpreted, mostly by Democrats.

In fact, McConnell is up to something even worse than what Democrats are saying. But they want to use his comments as a tool in this year’s elections:

Democrats issued warnings Wednesday about the peril Republicans pose to Medicare and Social Security, accusing the GOP of plotting to cut critical safety net programs to close a budget deficit of their own making.

“A vote for Republican candidates in this election is a vote to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” argued Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Van Hollen and other Democrats pounced on comments from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in which the top Senate Republican blamed social programs for the growing deficit and said he hoped Congress would tackle spending on them “at some point here.”

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that McConnell and Republicans wouldn’t like to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They would. If they had their fondest wish, they’d privatize all three programs, as at various times in the past they have attempted to do. But it isn’t quite accurate to say that if Republicans retain control of Congress they’ll be imposing sweeping entitlement cuts.

In fact, McConnell said just the opposite, acknowledging that entitlement cuts are too politically perilous for Republicans to undertake on their own without bipartisan cover. He wasn’t being completely honest when it comes to Medicaid, since Republicans already tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have tossed millions of people off the program, and McConnell still says that if they have the votes to repeal the ACA next year, they’ll do it. But his game is much less straightforward and more diabolical.

What McConnell was actually doing in that interview was laying down a marker for the next two years, and the four or eight that come after that.

First, by claiming (falsely) that the GOP tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy have nothing to do with the deficit but it’s all because of entitlements, McConnell was saying “Don’t blame us.” Democrats will continue to argue that Republicans are hypocrites for ballooning the deficit, but McConnell is giving the members of his party the argument they can use in response, that despite the fact that they control the entire government, it has nothing to do with them. It’s all because of the entitlement programs that are on auto-pilot, and they can’t do anything about it now. Not their problem.

That’s what they’ll say for the next two years. But it’s what comes after that’s truly repugnant. McConnell is making clear that once there’s a Democrat in the White House and “unified government” (at least of the GOP) is over, he and his Republican colleagues will go right back to saying the deficit is an urgent crisis, demanding steep cuts to domestic spending in order to address it.

The truth is that the deficit is not really a problem at all, or at least not much of one. But Republicans know well that it’s an effective tool of intimidation and manipulation, given the eternal desire among Democrats to be seen as fiscally responsible stewards of government.

That was in many ways the entire story of the budget during the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency: Democrats trying to be reasonable and responsible while Republicans gleefully pushed them around, in ways that hampered Obama’s ability to solve problems and improve the well-being of the American public. Republicans knew that the more successful Obama was at things such as bringing the country out of the Great Recession, the more he’d benefit politically and the worse it would be for them. So they did everything they could to sabotage him.

And it started right at the beginning. Even before Obama took office, Republicans decided on a strategy of complete opposition, not only to prevent him from making policy to which they had an ideological objection but also to keep him from succeeding in any way. As Michael Grunwald reported in his book “The New New Deal,” Vice President Joe Biden had conversations with Republican senators in which they explained why they couldn’t work with him. “The way it was characterized to me was: ‘For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’ ” Biden said.

Even in the depths of a horrific recession, once Obama took office Republicans immediately began crying that economic stimulus would be disastrous if it added too much to the deficit, despite the fact that every sane economist believes that that’s exactly the moment when the government should be willing to take on more debt in order to get the economy moving again. That was in fact a principle Republicans embraced when the president was a Republican; as late as February 2008, nearly all Republicans in Congress approved a $152 billion stimulus, sending checks to millions of Americans to help the economy, with no worries about the deficit. “This is the Senate at its finest, recognizing this was an opportunity to demonstrate to the public that we could come together, do something important for the country and do it quickly,” said a guy named Mitch McConnell.

But when Obama took office, Republicans did an immediate 180-degree turn, claiming that if we didn’t rein in the deficit then we’d quickly turn into Greece, our entire economy and society thrown into chaos by our debt. It has been forgotten now, but “We’re going to be Greece soon” was an absolutely ubiquitous talking point on the right at the time.

Republicans then forced a series of budget battles, which included a government shutdown and threats to default on the debt, that restrained spending and prevented the kind of ongoing stimulus that would have made the Great Recession less painful. They knew exactly what they were up to: While slashing popular spending programs is always one of their goals, it’s particularly useful to do so when it undercuts the popularity of a Democratic president.

And what McConnell is saying now is this: We’re going to do it all over again the next time there’s a Democrat in the White House.

So when Democrats say that McConnell is admitting that Republicans want to take an ax to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, they’re only partially right. Does he want to do that? Sure. But he knows how difficult it would be, so he has a more immediate plan: Let the money flow as long as there’s a Republican president, but clamp down as soon as a Democrat is elected. It worked so well in the past, why wouldn’t it work again in the future?

 

[fraurosena]

Sweet Rufus. This is getting really, really bad. And very frightening. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

There's a link in the thread that has the Youtube video of the entire speech, which runs for around 15 minutes.

[WiseGirl]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Bwahaha I was just coming to post this!

[GreyhoundFan]

Awww, poor little racist doesn't like his racism being discussed: "Rep. Steve King erupts as his immigration views are compared to the Pittsburgh shooting suspect’s"

Spoiler

Republican Rep. Steve King, who is frequently criticized as aligned with the themes of white nationalism, is in the midst of a surprisingly tense reelection race in Iowa.

At least one poll has shown his Democratic challenger, J.D. Scholten, within striking distance, although FiveThirtyEight still gives King a nearly 83 percent chance of winning.

And growing attention to King’s affiliation with far-right groups and figures, including a Nazi sympathizer, has culminated with the possible beginnings of a donor boycott. A handful of corporations, including Intel and the dairy company Land O’Lakes, have announced that they will no longer support King financially. Even the Republican Party issued a sharp rebuke of King that stopped just short of saying he promoted white supremacy.

The scrutiny built toward a confrontation Thursday after King was harshly questioned about whether his racially tinged views on immigration shared any similarities with those of Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect who had said he was motivated by a fear of “invaders” responsible for his “people” being “slaughtered.”

Video of the confrontation between King and his questioner circulated widely after being captured by the political blog, Iowa Starting Line.

A questioner in the room read statements from Bowers and King, then said he thought King shared the shooter’s ideology regarding immigration.

“No, don’t you do that,” King said, cutting the man off. “Do not associate me with that shooter. I knew you were an ambusher when you walked in the room. But there’s no basis for that.”

The man continued trying to ask a question about what distinguishes King’s ideology. But the congressman cut him off.

“You’re done. You crossed the line. It’s not tolerable to accuse me to be associated with a guy that shot 11 people in Pittsburgh,” King said. “This is over, if you don’t stop talking.”

It was not immediately clear who the man who confronted King is or whether he was there representing any political groups.

King spokesman John Kennedy said that Iowans were calling in after seeing the video to say they agreed with the congressman.

In an email to The Washington Post, Kennedy lambasted “Leftist Media Lies,” though he did not respond when asked to give specific examples.

King himself also mentioned “Leftist Media Lies” as he took to Twitter to share Iowa Starting Line’s video of the exchange.

King has come under fire in recent days after The Post reported that he met with a far-right party with historical Nazi ties in Austria while on a trip to Europe that had been financed by a Holocaust memorial group.

At the forum in Iowa on Thursday, King defended the Austrian political group, saying that the party had purged former Nazis more than 50 years ago, except one with “a little youthful affiliation.” The party is now led by Heinz-Christian Strache, who was active in neo-Nazi circles as a youth.

King spoke about touring Holocaust sites in Poland before he flew to Vienna, an experience he said was moving.

His past statements — King has assailed immigrants, retweeted a Nazi sympathizer, and said that “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies,” in what many interpreted as an echo of the language of white nationalists — have drawn more scrutiny since Saturday’s shooting.

Last month, King’s decision to endorse Faith Goldy, a white nationalist candidate for Toronto mayor who appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast around the Charlottesville rally and later publicly recited a white supremacist slogan, also drew uproar.

King blamed The Post for the attention, saying at the forum on Thursday that “the entire fiasco that you’ve seen here in the state for the last three days” was based on the report last week about the Austria trip.

King’s relationship with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — King was co-chair of Cruz’s presidential campaign in Iowa — has also come under question as the senator faces a tight reelection race in one of the country’s most racially diverse states. Cruz called King on Wednesday to express his support, even as donors and other party officials have moved away, Bloomberg News reported.

Gee, the WaPo is to blame because he's a racist? That's an interesting assessment lie.

[fraurosena]

Deer Rufus! Another investigation?