What’s the story with the new social phenomenon of the verite Mitt sighting? The anti-Zelig? Guerilla rebranding? Just deeply weird dude? We’re discussing it at TPMPrime.
For it doesn’t get better than a Congressman accosting a noisy protestor and threatening to cane him. But that’s just me. Liberal groups down in Florida were protesting 82 year old Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) when one protestor got into Young’s face and it pretty much went down hill from there. Read More
It’s not the holiday season without the Golden Duke Awards, TPM’s annual homage to the year’s best purveyors of public corruption, outlandish behavior and The Crazy. (The awards are named in honor of Congressman-turned-inmate Randy “Duke” Cunningham. See the letter Cunningham sent our reporter Ryan Reilly last year.) This is the sixth annual installment of the Golden Dukes! (See last year’s winners here.)
Nominations are due no later than Friday, December 14, 2012.
Submission details after the jump!! Read More
From TPM Reader CA …
I would like to see TPM emphasize more strongly not just the history of raising the debt limit, but the essential dynamics by which it is made necessary.
Congress passes budgets that are unfunded and require borrowing; Congress must vote to raise debt limit. The President can be described as structurally incidental to this process.
Lindsay Graham (and others) are therefore (as always) lying when they seek to describe the problem as overspending on the part of the executive, and that needs to be hammered home again and again.
UAW Prez says right to work fight will make unions stronger.
Scene right now in the Michigan state capitol building.
I wanted to quickly follow up on that Mother of All Government Shutdowns on deck for February(ish). As noted earlier, the President says he will not allow another round of debt limit hostage taking. It’s been ambiguous to me just what the President means by this. Clearly, a debt limit increase is being entertained as part of a global deal. But absent that global deal, Republicans seem to be insisting on another round of debt-limit hostage-taking centered on the House. (Reid has made clear he can take the Senate out of the picture.) Read More
Put me down as skeptical that Jeb Bush will ever run for President. But if he does, his future campaign hit a small bump in the road today. Saturday’s Miami Herald reports high-flying Miami businessman Claudio Osorio was arrested over the weekend on federal fraud charges. Looking at the indictment it’s a familiar story. Act fancy and live large. Get some big wigs to go into business with you and then start shaking down gullible richies who will invest in your company which is little more than a Potemkin village. Read More
Could filibuster reform become bipartisan? Are some Republicans warming to the idea or are some Dems getting cold feet? The latest on the effort to rein in the out of control silent filibuster.