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Monday, October 26, 2015

The Daily Drift

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The Things of Republican Nightmares ... !
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Congressman Loses Bet, Forced to Sing Song on the Floor of the House

Rep. Adam Schiff of California roots for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. His colleague, Rep. Steve Israel of New York supports the New York Mets. They had a wager over the outcome of a game between their two teams. The Mets won 3-2 and, as a result, Schiff had to sing the song "Meet the Mets" on the floor of the House of Representatives.
My favorite line: "Mr. Speaker, please tell me my time has expired."
Rep. Schiff must also send a supply of gourmet popcorn to Rep. Israel as a result of his defeat.

The Truth Is A Joke

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Citizenship for immigrants creates stronger political integration

Citizenship for immigrants creates stronger political integration
Naturalization acts as a catalyst that builds greater social and political integration for immigrants and their new countries, according to Stanford research. Heated debate surrounds the political integration of immigrants and their access to citizenship. But unlike...

Paul Krugman Celebrates Another Deathblow for Know-nothing Wingnut Economics

Obama Smacks Down Extremists By Refusing To Negotiate With Republican Hostage Takers

obama-point
President Obama is gearing up for a huge showdown with Congressional Republicans promising to veto any bill that raises the debt limit, but contains spending cuts.
The Hill reported:
President Obama would veto any bill to raise the debt limit if spending cuts are attached, the White House said Friday.
“Yes,” spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters when asked whether the president would kill such a measure.
It’s the clearest sign yet from the White House that Obama will only accept a clean bill to extend the nation’s borrowing authority before a fast-approaching Nov. 3 deadline.

“We believe this should be done without negotiation, without drama, without delay,” Schultz said. “No negotiations, period.”

President Obama’s veto of the NDAA was a warning shot to Republicans. Obama wants the growth-killing sequester cuts gone, and this president is willing to go to the mat over the debt limit and the budget to get it done.
The myth that continues to consume the Republican cabal is that they can play hardball and get the President to back down. Trump recently advised Republicans, “If they were really unified and they took that 30 percent stance, assuming they wanted to really make changes and do it right, and cut the budget, cut the deficit, do things that they should be doing, if they took that group, and if everybody was unified, Obama would fold.”
Obama isn’t going to fold. In fact, he is gaining strength and making his move on the Republican cabal. Obama isn’t going to negotiate with the Republican cabal hostage takers. Republicans are going end up regretting what they wished for because President Obama is ready for a fight.

Obama Shocks Republicans Out Of Their Twilight Zone With A Fact Bomb On The Economy

obama-dnc-wlf
President Obama compared Republicans to Grumpy Cat and shocked them out of their Twilight Zone of denial by dropping an economic fact bomb on the Republican cabal.
While speaking at the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum, President Obama mentioned a New York Times article written by John Harwood, which detailed that Republicans have a data problem because the U.S. budget deficit grew during the juntas of Reagan and both shrubs, but was eliminated during Clinton and sharply cut during Obama.
Right after calling Republicans Grumpy Cat, the President said, “There was an article I think in The New York Times today, or maybe it was yesterday, where they pointed out that it’s very hard for them (Republicans) to make the arguments they make about tax cuts for the wealthy and doing the same stuff that they’ve been promoting, and trying to eliminate regulations on the big banks and all that when the empirical evidence shows that when Democrats control the White House and we’ve got a Democratic Congress, the economy does better; and when they’re in charge, it does worse.”
Obama continued, “I mean, just look at the facts. Don’t take my word for it. Go back and take a look at, all right, here’s Bill Clinton’s presidency, and then there’s Bush presidency, and then there’s my presidency, and take a look.”
So here we go, taking a look — and the view is nice, I’ll start off with a quote sure to upset the Grumpy Cat doomsayers, “Today, the United States has the strongest major economy in the world.”
More from the NYTimes:
The (Republican) party still likes to invoke its success under Ronald Reagan, who cut taxes after defeating Jimmy Carter in 1980. By the mid-1980s, stagflation had turned into an economic boom.
But neither of the two subsequent Republican pretenders fared as well compared with their Democratic successors. That has left the cabal vulnerable in three ways.

Growth has remained modest under President Obama, but unemployment has dropped to 5.1 percent since the recession ended five months into his term. The budget deficit as a percentage of the overall economy has fallen to 2.5 percent from 9.8 percent.
A second problem for Republicans stems from their own rhetoric. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama pushed through tax increases despite warnings from partisan adversaries. Among many other Republicans, the current pretender candidates Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and Jeb all denounced the “job-killing” consequences of Mr. Obama’s policies.
Yet the economy gained 2.9 million jobs in 2014, more than in any year since 1999, during Mr. Clinton’s term. Net job creation during the 15 years that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama occupied the White House has topped 30 million. That is 50 percent more than were created in the 20 years of Mr. Reagan and both shrubs.
Republicans have been skating by on the already debunked notion that they are the cabal of fiscal business. Under this misguided belief, they have been treated as the experts on the economy. The media has gone along with this for years, even though the data told a different story. The shrub’s eight years at the helm told the story of a cabal of entitled, drunken frat boys racking up debt on daddy’s black card while refusing to feed a starving relative for “moral” reasons.
President Obama isn’t running in 2016, but he can deliver a devastating argument on behalf of Democrats in a way that few others can. Nobody in the U.S. understands the Republican Twilight Zone better than Obama. He has lived with it, challenged it, and defeated it throughout his presidency.

The Truth Hurts

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Pundits ridicule Republican cabal Benghazi committee members

Hillary Clinton and a shell-shocked Trey Gowdy -- Screenshot from C-Span coverage of Banghazi Committee hearings
Nothing however will sting the members of Gowdy’s committee like ultra-conservative commentator Erick Erickson calling the whole exercise a “waste of time,” while adding Clinton is “too bright” for them.

Obama Compares Republicans To 'Grumpy Cat'

Obama Owns The Republican Cabal After Their Benghazi Failure

A day after Republican’s colossal failure trying their best to get a “gotcha moment” on Hillary Clinton during her testimony in front...

Not Satisfied With Crushing Benghazi Committee, Hillary Clinton Goes After Republican Cabal Witch-Hunts

hillary clinton DNC Women's Leadership Forum
Hillary Clinton isn’t done taking on Republican investigations. Less than a day after crushing the House Republican Select Committee On Benghazi, Clinton went after other Republican witch-hunt investigations during her speech to the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum.
Clinton said:
For people who say they hate big government, Republicans sure spend a lot of time trying to restrict women’s reproductive health and reproductive rights. After my experience yesterday, I am just amazed that they are even talking about setting up another special investigative committee. This time to investigate Planned Parenthood.

And I think we all know by now, that’s just code for a partisan witch-hunt.
Haven’t we seen enough of that?
Clinton began her remarks by making it clear that yesterday’s testimony in front of the Benghazi Select Committee was a big win for her. She said, “As some of you may know, I had a pretty long day yesterday, but I finally got to answer questions. Something I’ve been pushing for, literally, for a year, and I am grateful that I recovered my voice, which I lost a little bit. As I said at the start, I wanted to rise above partisanship and reach for statesmanship, and that is what I tried to do.”
She did reach the level the level of statesmanship, and in the process dominated the over-matched House Republicans at their own hearing.
More importantly, the Democratic front-runner isn’t done with taking on Congressional Republicans. Clinton jumped right into the middle of the Republican plan to use Planned Parenthood as a partisan political tool to get out the wingnut vote in 2016.
Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony was an act of national service because she shined a spotlight on the House Republican abuse of their investigative powers.`
Clinton was correct. These special investigations are witch-hunts that waste taxpayer resources for partisan political purposes.
Hillary Clinton is hunting the witch-hunters and after the display she put on Thursday, Republicans should be very afraid.

Hillary Stronger Than Ever As Republicans Panic Over Botched Benghazi Hearing

Hillary Stronger Than Ever As Republicans Panic Over Botched Benghazi HearingThursday’s disastrous Benghazi hearing may one day be looked back at as the day Republicans lost the 2016 election.

BENGHAZI Head Witch-Hunter Gowdy Nabbed Using A Private Email Server

BENGHAZI Head Witch-Hunter Trey Gowdy Nabbed Using A Private Email Server
Gowdy isn’t the only hypocrite on the BENGHAZI Committee, either.

The Truth Be Told

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Jeb Campaign Disintegrating, Latest Move Shows Quitting Just Around The Corner

Jeb Bush Campaign Disintegrating, Latest Move Shows Quitting Just Around The Corner
So much for being an apologist for his brother.
Read more 

Trump bars Univision from covering campaign event

The feud between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the Univision network flared up again on Friday.

Republican Bad Week Gets Worse As DOJ Finds No Targeting Of Wingnuts By IRS

john-boehner-paul-ryan-apFirst the Benghazi scandal bit the dust after Hillary Clinton testified, and then the Department of Justice released their report that found no targeting of conservatives and no criminal wrongdoing at the IRS.
In his letter to Congress, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik wrote, “We found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution. Based on the evidence developed in this investigation and the recommendation of experienced career prosecutors and supervising attorneys at the Department, we are closing our investigation and will not seek any criminal charges.”
Democratic Ways And Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin delivered the blunt truth that Republicans wasted 20 million taxpayer dollars on an empty conspiracy theory, “I was one of the first Members of Congress to call for Ms. Lerner’s resignation in 2013 in response to her mismanagement and poor judgement. Since May of 2013, the IRS has spent $20 million and provided to Congress more than one million pages of documents related to this investigation.”
The bogus Republican investigations are dropping like flies. Of course, Republicans still refuse to see reality. They are still clinging on to the belief that the IRS was out to get them.
The IRS scandal was one of the fishing expeditions of Issa (R-CA). Issa was never able to produce any evidence to back his claims that President Obama was behind the IRS scandal, but he did manage to humiliate himself by releasing a report that proved that he had nothing.
The IRS scandal was supposed to bring down President Obama. The Benghazi scandal was supposed to be the end of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Instead, both Democrats are stronger than ever, and it is Republicans who are collapsing under the weight of their dysfunction.

Carson on whether Republican voting restrictions are racist ...

Ben Carson, via Gage Skidmore / FlickrCarson on whether Republican voting restrictions are racist: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ben Carson doesn’t even pretend to understand how electoral institutions affect electoral outcomes.

New Jersey Senate Overrides Christie Veto Of Gun Control Bill