Gentry Collins, former RNC political director who resigned and challenged Michael Steele for his job, has dropped out of the race for RNC chairman.
Rep.-elect Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has hired former Wasila, AK, dentist Rob Robinson as his chief of staff. Robinson introduced Gosar to Sarah Palin, who later endorsed Gosar’s campaign. Gosar has also named Palin family lawyer Thomas Van Flein to be his legislative director and deputy chief of staff. Van Flein handled the Troopergate scandal, among other things, for the Palins. Roll Call‘s Daniel Newhauser has the story.
Over the last month or so I’ve been getting emails from readers suggesting that President Obama, in an effort to meet Republicans half way on the budget front, will buy into the debt commission’s call for cuts to Social Security. I’ve seen a few opinion columns noted to this effect. But so far I’m just not seeing any evidence to suggest this is true.
As many have noted, one key issue is that the nation’s longterm debt problems — which are very real — don’t really have much to do with Social Security. Social Security is currently subsidizing the rest of the budget. And further out into the future, it’s just not the problem. The real and explosive problem is with health care and relatedly the political drive for tax cuts without any significant cuts on the spending side. But those are policy points. And the political calculus for a Democratic president just doesn’t add up either.
In any case, I’m not saying it’s impossible. I just haven’t seen any convincing evidence. If you have, let me know.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): “We need to have a showdown at this point that we are not going to increase our debt ceiling anymore. We are going to cut things necessary to stay within the current levels, which is over $14 trillion. This needs to be a big showdown.”
The debate for candidates for the RNC chairmanship is now underway. We’ll have updates shortly.
Quote of the day from Steele: “I’m a glass half full kind of guy.”
Sadly, the debate for RNC chairman candidates has been remarkably boring. But the group just asked about voter fraud and what they’re going to do about it. Needlessly to say, it’s candidate is saying all the right things about vote fraud. Now the candidate from Michigan, Saul Anuzis, is talking about the problem they’ve had in the state’s “urban areas.”
You might remember that a key player in the US Attorneys firing scandal ran for Congress this year. Tim Griffin. He won. And now he’s been appointed to serve on the House Judiciary Committee.
Fallen New York Times scribe Judith Miller trashes Julian Assange for not verifying the information he was getting from his sources.