eric cantor

Let's face it, Republican's are angry. You can't even talk to one about President Obama or the Democrats without them devolving into some shouting and name calling. But is that where their anger should really be?

In November we saw something really interesting. The Republican Party was losing Latino and women voters quicker than our savings in 2008. A lot of really bad candidates helped with this, but also the alienating legislative agenda of the GOP contributed. It's things like this:

Congress had a lengthy to-do list as the end of the year approached, with a series of measures that needed action before 2013 began. Some of the items passed (a fiscal agreement, a temporary farm bill), while others didn't (relief funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy).

And then there's the Violence Against Women Act, which was supposed to be one of the year's easy ones. It wasn't.

Back in April, the Senate approved VAWA reauthorization fairly easily, with a 68 to 31 vote. The bill was co-written by a liberal Democrat (Vermont's Pat Leahy) and a conservative Republican (Idaho's Mike Crapo), and seemed on track to be reauthorized without much of a fuss, just as it was in 2000 and 2005.

But House Republicans insisted the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans -- and they'd rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal. Vice President Biden, who helped write the original law, tried to persuade House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to keep the law alive, but the efforts didn't go anywhere.

Yesterday Chris Wallace challenged Romney adviser Ed Gillespie on rather Romney's tax cut plans were feasible. At issue was the "six independent studies" that the Romney campaign has been touting. Here's the exchange from Think Progress:

GILLESPIE: Six different studies have said this is entirely doable.

WALLACE: Those are very questionable. Some of them are blogs, some of them are from AEI, an independent group.

GILLESPIE: These are very credible sources.

WALLACE: One of them is a blog from a guy who was a top adviser for George W. Bush. These are hardly non-partisan studies.

GILLESPIE: Look Chris these AEI and other studies are very credible sources of analysis

So to Romney, an adviser to George Bush is non-partisan.

It's also amazing that the hundreds of other analysis that have come out, which say there is no way that Romney can cut the top earners tax rate by 20% without significantly raising taxes on the middle class, is just impossible. Instead Romney has chosen the very few studies that say it can be done.

But there is something even more interesting in this exchange. It's something I have hammered Romney on before - a lack of plan. Well Gillespie offers more insight into that. It shows that Mitt Romney is a man not worried about country, but worried about only him:

Ed Gillespie went on TV this morning and said Mitt Romney would only reveal the details of his tax plan after he’s sworn into office as President.

Remember back towards the end of last year when it came out that members of Congress were exempt from insider trading laws? The Senate quickly acted to fix that, rightly so, yet the House delayed acting on it. Actually it wasn't the whole House, but rather one man - Majority Leader, Eric Cantor. Here was his excuse back in December:

Cantor reportedly said he blocked the bill to give Congress more time to examine the issue. Critics of the move, however, fear that any delay could kill the bill entirely.

Well 5 months later and it finally got passed, but not before some "tweaks" went into it, by none other than Eric Cantor:

CNN is reporting that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) office wrote a loophole into the House version of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK) exempting Congress members’ spouses and children from having to report stock market transactions over $1,000 in a timely manner.

The Senate version of the bill requires these transactions be reported within 45 days by both its members and their families. But a memo from the Office of Government Ethics, which oversees all federal executive branch employees, used the House version, telling them spouses and children were not subject to the rule.

Neither of the bill’s Senate co-sponsors, Scott Brown (R-MA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), knew about the discrepancy.

“I mean, bottom line, we’re supposed to have that level of transparency and have us be treated like every other member of the United States,” Brown told CNN’s Dana Bash. “Bottom line, if we can’t do it, then — sorry, if they can’t do it — then we shouldn’t be able to do it as well.”

Honestly this is one of those "common sense" bills that should already be in the books:

Conservatives in the blogosphere found one small aspect of the president’s State of the Union address that they could praise: a bill banning insider trading by members of Congress.

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress and I will sign it tomorrow,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday night, to applause.

But perhaps conservatives should look to one of their own for stalling this legislation:

The Republican sponsor of the bill in the House, Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus of Alabama, had scheduled a markup of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act for next week. But on Wednesday, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia cancelled the markup session.

Cantor reportedly said he blocked the bill to give Congress more time to examine the issue. Critics of the move, however, fear that any delay could kill the bill entirely.

Congress constantly passes bills on a whim, but for some reason Cantor wants this one to have time for extra scrutiny. Why is that? Perhaps it's so they kind find ways to sneak loopholes into it or something.

There's no reason a bill can't make it to the President's desk within the next few days, except for certain members of Congress don't want it. I say if they don't feel they shouldn't have to follow the same laws as the rest of us then it's time to remove them from office. We can start with Eric Cantor.

Hurricane Irene is continuing to gain steam in the Atlantic and is now predicted to reach Cat-4 status late Thursday, right before it hits the eastern seaboard of Florida. It will continue up the coast and weaken to a still strong Cat 3 as it hits Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Here is the current path projection from the NHC:

This storm has the very real possibility of causing serious damage. Given the struggling economies of the states, it's a safe bet that they will request federal aide to recover. That makes me wonder about a representative from one of the targeted states, Eric Cantor.

Remember back in May when Joplin, Mo. was flattened by an EF-5 tornado? An entire U.S. town was devastated, but when it came time to help we saw Eric Cantor use the disaster to push a poetical agenda. 

The No. 2 House Republican said that if Congress doles out additional money to assist in the aftermath of natural disasters across the country, the spending may need to be offset.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “if there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental.”

A majority of people are against the handling of the debt crisis on the part of every party, but the vast majority disapprove of the way the Republicans are handling the issue than anyone else a CBS News poll finds.

	Approve	Disapprove
President Obama	43%	48%
Democrats in Congress	31%	58%
Republicans in Congress	21%	71%

This really comes as no surprise given the melodramatic way GOP leaders like Eric Cantor have acted during the talks. On top of that, the GOP has constantly changed their goal posts. It's becoming more and more obvious that the right is playing politics with this issue while ignoring the financial security of our nation.

So what will happen if the negotiations fail and we don't raise the debt limit? My guess is that the GOP will way dearly for it and the best way to make sure of that is for the Democrats to pounce on it. They don't need to spin or stretch the truth. Just remind the American people of some simple facts:

When all the news was turned to the flooding Mississippi, there was a big rumor going around the right wing media that the federal government wouldn't offer any aide. Of course that was a flat out lie and FEMA is still expanding the financial aide.

This week Joplin, Missouri was hit by the worst tornado in it's history. The entire town was basically flattened. So is our federal government ready to help there? Well not if Eric Cantor has his way:

The No. 2 House Republican said that if Congress doles out additional money to assist in the aftermath of natural disasters across the country, the spending may need to be offset.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “if there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental.”

Finding ways to offset disaster relief funds could be a significant challenge for House Republicans and would put their promise to cut spending to a true test.

This is how the GOP cuts government spending:

For a guy who insists that federal bureaucrats make too much money, incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor sure doesn't mind handing out handsome government raises of his own.

Cantor, the Virginia Republican who has led the GOP charge this year to freeze federal salaries, has boosted his congressional office's payroll by 81 percent since coming to Congress in 2001 – about 8 percent per year through 2009. When he became minority whip last year, the office's personnel expenses went up by at least 16 percent.

And how about a Tea Bagger darlings?

_ Firebrand Republican Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has for months pushed legislation to freeze what she calls "unconscionable" federal salaries. Meanwhile, her own payroll jumped 16 percent between 2007, when she came to Congress, and 2009.

If you are one of those Tea Baggers that believe in people like Bachmann then I got some ocean front property in Utah to sell you. You really need to wake up and realize that you are being made a total fool of.