republican members

Paul Ryan has admitted that his Medicare plan is nothing more than a mandate for seniors. This is from a townhall Ryan held in Racine, Wisconsin:

Q: If Medicare becomes a voucher program, would you require seniors to purchase private insurance and if so isn’t that an individual mandate? If you will not require them to purchase insurance how do you propose to prevent a situation where the costs of uninsured seniors is very expensive and gets passed on to me as a private policy holder? [...]

RYAN: Its mandate works no different than how the current Medicare law works today, which is you just select from a wide range of different plans. It literally would be like Medicare Advantage…

Now how can mandates be unconstitutional for everyone but seniors? That just doesn’t make sense and it blows a big gapping hole into the GOP argument over the mandates in the healthcare reform bill passed last year.

But this isn’t the only problem. This is being billed as a way to financially save Medicare. This is from a GAO report done in 2008:

Though it was originally envisioned as a potential way to save the Medicare program money, the government pays on average 13 percent more to care for a Medicare Advantage enrollee than it would if that person were in traditional Medicare.

So the plan to save us money will actually cost our country 13% more? Here we go with the fuzzy GOP math again, and with forcing every senior into the program, costs will really skyrocket. Keep in mind that this isn’t some prediction from the OMB, this is based on the actual numbers from the existing program, as computed by the GAO.

With the arrest of a Pakistani born, U.S. citizen in connection with the failed car bombing on Times Square, the Republican members of Congress are starting to show that they have absolutely no respect for the Constitution of this land:

The morning after the arrest of 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad at John F. Kennedy airport on Monday evening, the usual suspects in the GOP took to print and the airwaves to whack away at the president and his top lawyer. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) mocked the idea that Attorney General Eric Holder might read the suspect his Miranda rights or consider trying him in a civilian court.

"I hope that [Attorney General Eric] Holder did discuss this with the intelligence community. If they believe they got enough from him, how much more should they get? Did they Mirandize him? I know he's an American citizen but still," King said.

Notorious for jumping into the political fray in the wake of attempted or successful terrorist acts, King was quickly joined in the ring by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who called the idea of reading Miranda rights a "serious mistake."

As matter of fact McCain has even gone to the right of Glenn Beck now:

"He is a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens," the bombastic Fox News host said to the stunned co-hosts of "Fox and Friends". "If you are a citizen, you obey the law and follow the Constitution. [Shahzad] has all the rights under the Constitution."

"We don't shred the Constitution when it is popular," Beck added. "We do the right thing."

Remember all the rage from the right a couple of months ago when Nancy Pelosi aid the CIA mislead Congress? Well according to the head of the CIA, Pelosi may have just been telling the truth:

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

Now this adds a new layer to the outrage manufactured y the right over Pelosi’s comments. They twisted what she said and made it out that she was accusing the CIA of lying to Congress, a violation of law. Of course this was something that Republican members of Congress had also done in the past, including the top Republican on the intelligence committee and the minority leader.

So why did the Republicans get into such an uproar over Pelosi’s comments? Sure it could be in part that they saw blood and a way to go after the Speaker of the House, but could there be another reason given this admission by Panetta? Perhaps the Republicans knew that this was happening under the Bush administration and figured they better pull the old “slight of hand” move so that no one would look at the legal issues raised by the Bush CIA. This is even more plausible when you look at the two Republicans who lead the charge against Pelosi – the very two who made the same claims as Pelosi in the past.

A "gang of 14" House Republicans won't endorse John McCain:

At least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Sen. John McCain for president, and more than a dozen others declined to answer whether they back the Arizona senator.

Many of the recalcitrant GOP members declined to detail their reasons for withholding support, but Rep. John Peterson (R-Pa.) expressed major concerns about McCain’s energy policies and Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) cited the Iraq war.

A handful of other Republicans on Capitol Hill made the distinction between “endorsing” and “supporting,” adding that while they have not endorsed, they do support McCain.

We need lots more news like this.

The outrage over Larry Craig's conviction is still loud and strong. I find it interesting to see all the outrage on the right. Today's USA Today highlights some of this.

I am still baffled by the outrage over Craig's conviction by some of the same people who came to the defense of Mark Foley. Foley's actions are far worse than the actions of Craig.

Thinking back to last fall, remember how a lot of these Republicans even went as far as to attack the children Foley was after?

I think everyone needs to call their Republican members of Congress and Senate and ask why there is such a disgusting double standard. It is disgusting because there is no real victim in Craig's crime. There were victims in what Foley did - victims that are children.

I guess it could be summed up best by saying that the Republican party does not care about children. This proves that their priorities are only within votes. They are truly the party of disgust.

In the 90's, the Republican leadership in Congress decided to engage in a witchhunt against Bill Clinton that last for months and cost taxpayers millions. The witchhunt was about sexual relations between two consenting adults. The Republicans now try to blame Clinton for 9/11 and say it was because he was distracted by the Lewinsky scandal - a scandal they created. To the Republicans this is all ok.

Now we fast forward 8 years and find out about Mark Foley. To make matters even worse, senior Republican members of the House have known of these allegations for almost a year. They have chosen to ignore them. They chose to allow Foley to continue to hold a seat of power as a United States Congressman and never questioned it.

This is beyond hypocrisy. This is down right sick and very possibly illegal. The Republicans have endangered CHILDREN in the name of politics. They chose to ignore the warnings and that is unacceptable. How would they feel if this was their children? The Republicans have acted as enablers in this and they need to answer to it.

Are we going to sit by and not only become a nation of torture, but also a nation of political officials who prey upon children? Fuck No!

It looks like there is dissent amongst the GOP ranks Raw Story is reporting:

At least four Republican members of Congress are calling on the House Republican leadership to hold a floor debate on the Iraq war, and are holding a press conference today, RAW STORY has learned.

The GOP members will announce that they would sign H. Res 543, the “discharge petition” that will force a debate on the House floor over the objections of House GOP leadership.

One of the members is Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), who famously helped coin the term "Freedom Fries" after US frustration with France surrounding Iraq. Since then, he has become a critic of the handling of the war and has sought greater discussion of the challenges and strategies for winning in Iraq.

Walter Jones is no shock. He is the Republican that supported the Murtha bill but now that more are joining in this could get heated. What is amazing is the fact that after three years, the Republicans are now starting to want to hold a debate. Guess it being an election year has a definite bearing on things.