Over recent days we’ve heard a growing chorus of squeals from Washington Republicans about how President Obama really, really, really needs to do something about the sequester. This is joined by lots of stories about Republicans trying to name the sequester the Obamaquester and saying it was all President Obama’s fault and his doing. But all of this amounts to protesting too much. Read More
We’ve made some small changes in our front page design today. So if you’re a regular and want to hear the backstory, join me after the jump. Read More
Just before the conclave to elect a new Pope, Britain’s highest ranking Catholic, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, is resigning in the wake of accusations of ‘inappropriate acts’ with priests.
On Friday we noted that The New Yorker had dug up a three year old speech in which freshman Sen. Ted Cruz had charged that there were at least a dozen professors at Harvard Law School during his time there in the mid-90s who “would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.” Read More
For the past 18 hours Republicans have been giddily waving around a new article by Bob Woodward as a smoking gun that proves sequestration should be replaced with spending cuts and spending cuts only — and that President Obama once conceded the point.
Here’s the key section, which certainly carries that implication. Read More
How is it that a Senator’s office ends up sending a form letter to a grieving parent of a child killed in a mass-shooting? The answer is that there’s no excuse. But two letters we received from TPM Readers shed some role on just how bad it’s gotten and the role of astroturf campaigns in the problem.
From TPM Reader MB …
It’s surprising how bad American political staffs have become at handling routine constituent correspondence like this — routine, that is, in the sense that elected officials can expect to receive frequent letters that require some modicum of understanding and acknowledgment.
TPM’s David Taintor is out with another story this afternoon on John McCain’s interactions with an Arizona couple whose son was killed in the Aurora movie theater massacre last year.
You may have already seen the video where McCain told the young man’s mom that she needed “some straight talk” on assault weapons. Now you can see the impersonal form letter McCain’s office sent earlier this month in response to a very personal email written by the man’s father.
Indiana Republicans pushing new transvaginal ultrasound mandate bill.