mitch mcconnell

It was a little over a year ago that President Obama came here to Cincinnati and pushed for his jobs plan. In that speech he talked about infrastructure improvements and highlighter the Brent Spence bridge that connects Ohio and Kentucky as a perfect example. Quickly Republicans pounced on this as "earmarks" and "pork barrel", including John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, each representing one of the affected states.

Well the money has never come for the bridge and now the states have come up with a plan to replace it:

The governors of Kentucky and Ohio say there will be tolls on the replacement for the Brent Spence Bridge. The governors met today, joining forces to put the project on the fast track. And it looks like drivers will have to pay a chunk of the $2.4 billion price tag.

Local 12's Joe Webb says the elephant in the room to this point on all discussions of a new bridge has been tolls. Governor Kasich cleared up that issue today. There will be tolls on the Brent Spence replacement.

(emphasis added)

We aren't talking about some lightly traveled bridge. This is bridge is used for two interstates, I-71 and I-75. I-75 is a major trucking route, connecting Florida to Michigan and Canada. Right now the bridge sees close to 200,000 vehicles travel over it per day.

So now we are going to have an added congestion factor on an already heavily congested artery in his country. Great plan guys!

And we can't have a story like this without the Tea Party involved:

One of the tools terrorists always try to employ is economic terrorism. Find ways to destroy an economy to help push their agenda. Now a U.S. Senator is pushing that very tactic here at home:

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) called on government contractors to put employees on layoff notice before November's election as a way to pressure Congress to address the so-called "fiscal cliff."

Graham, joined by Republican Sens. John McCain (AZ) and Kelly Ayotte (NH), were in Florida for their first stop on a two-day, four-state tour by these three members of the Senate Armed Services Committee designed to bring attention to the $500 billion in automatic cuts scheduled to begin in January if Congress does not find other ways to cut spending.

“Politicians, you know, quite frankly respond to pressure,” Graham said about the cuts set to begin in 2013 under the so-called sequestration budget.

This goes right along with the Republican platform of "tanking the economy to gain political power". Just remember, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, admitted last year that the GOP benefits from bad economic news and their obstructionism on any bill to help improve the economy is proof of that.

And then there's this little bit of delusional crap:

McCain, Graham, and Ayotte called for a bipartisan solution to the crisis.

Perhaps they can't remember way back in 2009 when the people voted in a huge Democratic majority in the House and Senate, yet Republicans felt the voters were too stupid to pick their own leaders, so they engaged in any trick they could to block the majority from acting.

"The Fix" in today's Washington Post offers up this headline:

Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever.

When you look at how divided this country is that could be easy to conclude, but is it President Obama's fault? First let's take a look at how they come to this conclusion:

For 2011, Obama’s third year in office, an average of 80 percent of Democrats approved of the job he was doing in Gallup tracking polls, as compared to 12 percent of Republicans who felt the same way. That’s a 68-point partisan gap, the highest for any president’s third year in office — ever. (The previous high was George W. Bush in 2007, when he had a 59 percent difference in job approval ratings.)

In 2010, the partisan gap between how Obama was viewed by Democrats versus Republicans stood at 68 percent; in 2009, it was 65 percent. Both were the highest marks ever for a president’s second and first years in office, respectively.

But consider what this President has had to go through. Before he even took the oath of office, one of the biggest voices proudly proclaimed that he wanted to see "this President fail". Now many try to say "Rush Limbaugh is just a radio personality", but that sentiment was quickly picked up by actual politicians, including Rick Santorum, who is currently a Republican presidential candidate. Furthermore, any Republican politician who tried to soften Rush's words ended up on his show apologizing to him.

Being the party of “NO” is more important than helping get our economy back on track:

Senate Republicans on Thursday rejected a bill to aid small businesses with expanded loan programs and tax breaks, in a procedural blockade that underscored how fiercely determined the party’s leaders are to deny Democrats any further legislative accomplishments ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The measure, championed by Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, had the backing of some of the Republican Party’s most reliable business allies, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. Several Republican lawmakers also helped write it.

But Republican leaders filibustered after fighting for days with Democrats over the number of amendments they would be able to offer. A last-ditch offer by Democrats to allow three was refused by the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

So what were the amendments the Republicans wanted?

It finally looks like the White House is going to get out front and show America who the party of no really is:

The White House is preparing late this week to aggressively go after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his GOP colleagues on financial reform.

A Democratic party source said Thursday evening that the White House was preparing to take an "aggressive stance" against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over Senate Republicans' vocal opposition this week to a financial regulatory reform bill set for debate on the Senate floor.

Democrats released a new video Thursday night to that end seeking to portray McConnell as parroting talking points that Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster who specializes in word choice, had recommended to Republicans in the financial debate.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. So much of the Tea Party is built out of anger over the bailouts of Wall Street; the same bailouts that were started by a Republican President. Now the Democrats are working to put a system in so that we can avoid these disasters in the future and (right on cue) we have the Republicans opposing it. So the very thing the Tea Party was founded to oppose is now being protected by the GOP. That makes for some very interesting political theater.

There’s been a lot of talk about the low approval ratings for Democratic leaders in Congress the new CBS poll shows, and yes they are pretty dismal.

What is amazing though is that they didn’t take the time to get the approval ratings of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell. Every poll I have ever seen that rates all 4 leaders, the two Democratic leaders might be low, but they still have a higher approval rating than their Republican counterparts. So why didn’t CBS ask about Boehner and McConnell?

It took the President himself going after Mitch McConnell, but finally he has some of his nominees confirmed:

The Senate confirmed a huge group of administration nominees on Thursday, following a tense exchange between President Barack Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

At a White House meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders on Tuesday, Obama warned that he would make recess appointments if the logjam over nominees wasn’t broken before the Senate left for the Presidents’ Day break.

“Mitch, this is unprecedented,” the president said, gesturing forcefully on the Cabinet Room table, according to aides. “If you don’t move any, I’m going to do some [recess] appointments.”

The Senate GOP’s obstructionist games they have played over the past year have been unprecedented. You wouldn’t know that listening to the mainstream media though. They try to portray it as “politics as usual”. That’s a big difference from a few years ago when Democrats were blocking one Bush nominee and the Republicans got all the face time in the world to blast the Democrats as obstructionists.

Without the public option the Senate bill still will cost an additional $19 billion according to the much anticipated CBO report. Also premiums won’t go down with the removal of the public option, as some had been pushing:

The CBO has concluded that, on average, premiums will be the same as they would have been if the Senate had the public option, but that the public option saved the federal government more money by putting downward pressure on the premiums of low-cost private plans, which will be heavily subsidized.

The public option actually save the government money – kind of screws the conservative argument for it, doesn’t it?

We also have new abortion restrictions now, but those are much more lax than the Stupak amendment passed by the House. This has now put Bart Stupak on the war path and he is actually crossing the aisle and working with Mitch McConnell to kill the bill.

Where does this leave us with the fate of a final bill?

Well once it passes the Senate, and all indications is that it will, it goes to conference where the House and Senate bills are merged. The Senate bill is a big change from the House Bill that passed last month by a vote of 220-215, so any changes, or lack their of, are going to be dangerous. Ben Nelson already made it clear today that if there are too many changes he will side with the Republicans to filibuster the bill in the Senate when they vote on the conference report.

But what about the House?