TPM Reader JC is all shook up …
Oh god, now he’s got me all confused. I hated that sad sack of —– worse than W in the day, but now I’m prepared to support him as a Democrat again. Whipsaw!
Fresh off gays and grizzly bears (literal grizzly bears, in case you’re wondering), top social conservative accuses President Obama of selling the US out to the Indians — i.e., Native Americans, not the folks over in India.
Pat Robertson supporting the decriminalization of marijuana?
Did you hear about those ‘strict new rules’ House Republicans have put in place to keep the budget in line? Some other publications may not be mentioning that they actually weaken the rules meant to keep Congress from adding to the deficit. Chait notes the key issue.
Why has the president had a striking string of legislative wins after the Democrats’ drubbing at the polls in November? The best answer is probably the simplest: the primary reason for bottling up these bills was political, with the aim of damaging the Democrats and the president in the midterm election. Once that election was over, the reason for blocking them disappeared.
I have little doubt that that’s the big difference. That’s especially the case with the 9/11 first responders bill and START, each of which were entirely uncontroversial.
But I also don’t believe it’s the only difference. So what else was in play because a) it wasn’t obvious to most people that this would happen even a couple weeks ago and b) as Mitch McConnell makes clear, congressional Republicans have only gotten started trying to derail the Obama presidency. Read More
Rudy Guiliani, Tom Ridge, Fran Townsend and even former AG Mukasey head to Paris to max and relax with Iranian exile terrorist group the US designates as a terrorist organization.
Reid’s apparently putting together a reform plan.
As I noted yesterday, we’re letting TPM Readers vote this year on who should win the Golden Duke in each of the eight categories. The latest results are below the fold and instructions on how you can vote.
Some of the leaders so far don’t surprise me too much. Christine O’Donnell is holding on to a substantial and I suspect insurmountable lead in the Meritorious Achievement in The Crazy category. And there’s a tight race between Michele Bachmann and Sharron Angle for Unrefudiated Champion of Tea Party Wackiness. (I voted for Angle.) What did jump out at me though was the voting in Most Outrageous Election Season Fib Issued By A Politician. I’m not sure I would have seen one of the fives nominees as the standouts. But TPM Readers don’t see it that way. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is running away with it (over 68% of the votes) for her claims of a rash of beheadings of Arizonans by crazed illegal immigrants.
Need a closer look at the data? Full results after the jump. Read More
Our Hill reporter Brian Beutler has his own take on why the Republicans seemed to give way on so many key votes in the final weeks. The key point — a number of these issues were going to come up again next year and not in particularly helpful ways.