republican leadership

Rep. Scott Randolph (D-FL) is in trouble with Florida House Republicans for saying a new dirty word on the House floor:

At one point Randolph suggested that his wife "incorporate her uterus" to stop Republicans from pushing measures that would restrict abortions. Republicans, after all, wouldn't want to further regulate a Florida business.

Apparently the GOP leadership of the House didn't like the one-liner.

They told Democrats that Randolph is not to discuss body parts on the House floor.

"The point was that Republicans are always talking about deregulation and big government," Randolph said Thursday. "And I always say their philosophy is small government for the big guy and big government for the little guy. And so, if my wife's uterus was incorporated or my friend's bedroom was incorporated, maybe they (Republicans) would be talking about deregulating.

"It's not like I used slang," said Randolph, who actually got the line from his wife. He said Republicans voiced concern about young pages hearing the word uterus.

How dare we talk about lady parts! They are nasty!!!!

And in memory of the late and great George Carlin, I leave you with this classic.

Michele Bachmann is telling people to break the law and calling for civil disobedience:

At a rally at the Minnesota State Capitol on Saturday, Bachmann declared illegitimate the potential route that House Democrats could take to pass the health care bill. She was specifically railing against a parliamentary tactic by which the House could skip voting on the Senate bill by declaring it passed as part of the reconciliation bill. Bachmann pronounced this to be taxation without representation. "They have just started a revolution -- and they did it," said Bachmann.

"But mark my words, the American people aren't gonna take this lying down," Bachmann later said. "We aren't gonna play their game, we're not gonna pay their taxes. They want us to pay for this? Because we don't have to. We don't have to. We don't have to follow a bill that isn't law. That's not the American way, and that's not what we're going to do."

Not the American way? Where were her complaints when the Republicans did the exact same thing?

– The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836, 3/26/01]
– The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2, 3/23/03]
– Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297,5/11/06]
– The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95, 12/21/05]

(By tlw3 via Alan.com)

Bachmann never once called those pieces of legislation illegal or un-American, despite the very same rule being used to pass them. As matter of fact those are the very issues that Republicans, like Bachmann, love campaigning on. They consider it huge victories for their party.

Rep. Parker Griffith (D-AL-5) is expected to announce today that he is switching from Democrat to Republican:

According to a senior GOP aide familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place in this afternoon in his home district in northern Alabama.

Griffith’s party switch comes on the eve of a pivotal congressional health care vote and will send a jolt through a Democratic House Caucus that has already been unnerved by the recent retirements of a handful of members who, like Griffith, hail from districts that offer prime pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2010.

The switch represents a coup for House Republican leadership, which had been courting Griffith since he publicly criticized Democratic leadership in the wake of raucous town halls over the summer.

Griffith did vote no on the original House health care bill, so this decision won’t really have any affect on that.

Like many others I was shocked the other day to see gas jump up 25 cents in one day. Of course we start writing it off as “increased demand”, something we hear every year at this time. Well it looks like the Republicans also noticed the increase and now are going to use it for their political points:

Republicans believe that rising gas prices are their trump card against a Democratic-sponsored climate change bill.

The GOP is struggling to regain footing after two successive electoral blowouts, but party leaders are relishing an opportunity to debate what they call a “national energy tax.”

The Democrats’ plan of moving a cap-and-trade bill this summer plays into GOP hands because as the cost of gasoline spikes, so does the public’s awareness of energy prices, Republican leadership aides say.

Yes – use outrage at the pump to further a political agenda. This is so Republican of them. But it also makes you wonder if the gas companies won’t play along. Will they keep inflating prices to try and kill environmental legislation? Perhaps a good pre-emptive attack on this will be for Congress to send out a warning shot. Let the gas companies know that they are being closely monitored and any sign of trying to inflate prices will be answered.

Something else this makes me think about is food prices. Last year when we had $4.00+ a gallon prices we saw our food prices skyrocket. Rightfully so they claimed it was from the high price of gas. But since then we seen the price of gas fall more then 1/2, yet the prices at the grocer are still at 2008 levels. So will they use this gas prices increase to jack their prices up again, even though they should still be good from last years increase? I wouldn’t doubt it, and Congress should send the same warning shot to these people also.

Perhaps that is a saying that should be echoed through the offices of the RNC and the Republican leadership. From the latest example of this practice, let’s look at the ongoing battle Michael Steele is waging with his own members in Senate:

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), a pro-stimulus Republican who will be up for re-election in 2012, told Roll Call that she approached Steele about his comments and asked him bluntly: "You didn't really mean that, did you?" She said that Steele has agreed to set up a meeting with the three pro-stimulus GOPers to discuss this.

Snowe pointed out that the loss of GOP moderates, and the view that they don't belong in the party, has contributed to the party's overall decrease. "When we were in the majority, there were more of us. Now that we're in the minority, there are less of us," Snowe explained, also adding: "If that's what they want to be, well that's their choice."

Snowe is referring to Steele’s threat of not giving RNC money for the re-election of the Senators who voted for the stimulus. This is the practice of “accept our entire agenda or get out” that has helped push the Republicans into their current dilemma. Sadly the RNC is also rich when it comes to egos, so they don’t see any wrong in this.

So it turns out that the big Republican stimulus package, rolled out by the House Republican leadership on the day of the stimulus vote, may have actually raised taxes. A staffer for the House Ways and Means committee email Greg Sargent this:

In 2008, 4.2 million Americans had to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The Republican proposal would lower marginal tax rates for individuals, but would not reduce AMT rates. Current law requires you to pay the greater of the two rates, so many of those receiving this lower marginal rate would now be held liable for the AMT.

There is no question that Congress needs to — and will — act to prevent the number of taxpayers hit by the AMT from growing to an estimated 26 million this year. However, we confirmed with the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation that 26 million people would still be forced to pay the AMT this year under the GOP bill. Essentially, their tax bill would give with one hand and take away with the other, leaving 26 million families without the tax cut they promised in their bill.

Sounds like the typical kind of loophole we are used to seeing in these kind of packages. Of course the Republicans aren’t taking this, and a spokesman for Eric Cantor emailed Greg the following:

These are the type of untruths spread by House Democrats that continue to undermine President Obama’s desire to work together to provide real solutions to the challenges faced by hardworking Americans. This is nothing short of a total fabrication, as there will be no more people subjected to the AMT under the Republican jobs plan than the Democrat spending bill. In fact it is likely that the Republican plan would subject less to it.{[}]lt;/p>

We are rapidly losing jobs. The economy is on the brink. This week has been no better, yet Republican leadership continues to play games with the stimulus bill. Here’s how the Democrats need to proceed on it.

The stimulus package has strong public support, while the Republican leaders opposing it have some of the lowest approval ratings. So the Democrats should place all the concessions they made to appease Republicans right back in the bill and bring it up for a vote. Then they need to get every surrogate out to the networks explaining to the American people that they were trying to work with Republicans, but Republicans had no intention of seeing this bill passed. All of this went down while hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs.

Elections have consequences and the people spoke during the last two election cycles by denouncing Republican ideas. It’s time for the Democrats to start listening to the people and recognize their new found power, instead of bowing to the highly unpopular Republicans.

The American electorate is smart, and they will see that the Republicans are trying to block the salvation of our economy. The people were able to see through the Republicans in the last session of Congress. We had the worst approved Congress in our nation’s history, yet the people voted overwhelmingly to give more control to the party of power. That means they knew the Republicans were the taint, and if the Democrats do the right thing now then they will continue to see that taint and give the Democrats even more power in 2010. It’s not that complicated. Stop acting like a bunch of "friends” and “good ol’ boys” up there on Capital Hill and act like leaders.