GOP tactics // Current TV

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danieltilson
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3 months ago
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GOP Leaders To Bernanke: Don’t Try And Improve The Economy Again

House and Senate GOP leadership are taking fire from all sides for publicly pressuring Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke not to further loosen monetary policy, even if he thinks it will help the economy.

In a Tuesday letter to Bernanke, leaked to the press, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), ostentatiously cautioned Bernanke against providing the economy any further monetary stimulus.

"[W]e submit that the board should resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy, particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people," the Republicans write.

Because the Fed's monetary policy decisions are expressly intended to be immune to political pressures the letter has generated backlash from Democrats and Republicans alike.

"Even if I agreed with GOP letter (I don't) I'd still disagree with the effort to put public political pressure on Bernanke," wrote former George W. Bush spokesman and Treasury Department official Tony Fratto on Twitter. "Twist, shout...whatever...Ben Bernanke should do exactly what he thinks is right to even marginally impact the U.S. economy."

"This is a heavyhanded attempt to meddle in the Fed's independent stewardship of monetary policy," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). "It should be ignored by Chairman Bernanke and the Fed's policymakers."

And indeed the Fed is meant to shrug away this sort of political intervention. For months, though, the Fed has been reluctant to address the full employment side of its dual mandate to maintain price stability and keep unemployment low. The intent of the letter is to maintain that reluctance. The message, both to Bernanke and every member of the Federal Open Market Committee -- watch your step. The GOP primary contenders have already taken blood oaths against Bernanke and the goal here is to make it clear the GOP will make sure there are political and/or professional repercussions if Bernanke doesn't desist.

The Fed is expected to announce its policy on Wednesday afternoon.House and Senate GOP leadership are taking fire from all sides for publicly pressuring... more

WakeUpPeople
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5 months ago
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113 comments

Pima County, AZ (Tucson) GOP raffling off a glock for a GOTV fund raiser

Yep, that place where Congresswoman Giffords and others were shot, six fatally, via... more

attilatheblond
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5 months ago
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5 comments

Purging Voter Rolls To Steal Election, 2012 Style

In the 2000 election, voter suppression in Florida gave America eight years of Bush.

Kevin_Fricke
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8 months ago
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President of AZ State Senate denies man access to building for clapping in crowd overflow room in captial

AZ Senate President Russell Pearce is being sued for targeting frequent critic... more

attilatheblond
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8 months ago
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1 comment

President Obama Must Call GOP'S Bluff

Look out, President Obama: House Republicans have created another “hostage... more

wayseeker
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9 months ago
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Republicans: You know your party is fucked up when your candidate for president’s biggest campaign promise is to strip people of their health care.

Health care is more than just one-sixth of the American economy. It is a source of... more

joeeddy
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9 months ago
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5 comments

Canadian Conservatives vs. The GOP

Some years ago, the columnist and editor Michael Kinsley sponsored a contest to come... more

joeeddy
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9 months ago
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US Representative Danny Rehberg (R-MT), whose net worth is $31,000,000 and is the 14th richest member of the House, said at a town hall that he’s “struggling” like everybody else and that he’s “cash poor”

conservative members of Congress are facing a backlash across the country as Main... more

joeeddy
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10 months ago
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1 comment

The Donald is the Republican id – finally entirely unleashed from all restraint and reality

Donald Trump’s lunacy reveals core truth about the Republicans

joeeddy
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10 months ago
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You might be a Republican if…

By Bruce Lindner – first posted at AddictingInfo.org You believe George W.... more

bundlebear
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10 months ago
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211 comments

Dems call GOP’s bluff, force House Republicans to vote down their own budget

"WASHINGTON – House Republicans scrambled Friday to vote down their own... more

moodyblue
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10 months ago
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36 comments

What Social Issues "Truce"?

By Suzy Khimm| Fri Apr. 8, 2011 8:16 AM PDT
For the newly empowered Republicans, the budget fight was supposed to be about the numbers: slashing government spending, bringing down the deficit, and restoring the country to fiscal sanity. But a government shutdown now appears to hinge on the GOP's decision to slash subsidies for gynecological exams and local funding for abortions in the District of Columbia, as I reported on Thursday evening. It's a replay of the fight over the Affordable Care Act that happened almost exactly a year ago, when anti-abortion Democrats blocked the bill over abortion funding issues.

The showdown should put to rest the notion that tea party-backed Republicans simply doesn't care about social issues. Since last year's elections, tea party organizers have tried to insist that the grassroots movement cares most about fiscal issues. "People didn’t come out into the streets to protest gay marriage or abortion," FreedomWorks' Brendan Steinhauser told Politico last month. The Christian Right, likewise, has expressed concern that their issues would be left on the backburner. "There's a libertarian streak in the tea party movement that concerns me as a cultural conservative," said the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer. "The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage."

Well, these social conservatives seem to have little to worry about under the new GOP regime. Even if the tea party activists "in the streets" want the Congress to focus on fiscal issues, they've succeeded in electing the same old Republicans with the same agendas. Tea party heroes like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) haven't abandoned their anti-abortion crusades. "Dems to force shutdown & stop troop funding unless taxpayers forced to fund abortions in DC," DeMint tweeted on Thursday night. Now that the tea party has helped put (or keep) them in power, they have full rein to push an agenda that pleases social conservatives and the Christian right—and use these issues to gain leverage over the Democrats. Whether the GOP's tea party supporters—and independent voters—will be happy about this development is another question altogether.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/04/what-social-issues-truceBy Suzy Khimm| Fri Apr. 8, 2011 8:16 AM PDT For the newly empowered Republicans, the... more

twinite
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10 months ago
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1 comment

“Default by the United States is unthinkable.”

The United States will hit the legal limit on its ability to borrow no later than May... more

joeeddy
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10 months ago
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Paul Ryan’s budget in summary

It occurs to me that I haven’t yet posted a simple summary of what House Budget... more

bambuu
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10 months ago
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47 comments

GOP's price to delay shutdown? $12B

President Barack Obama called top lawmakers to the White House for a meeting Tuesday, even as House Republicans edged closer to a real government shutdown Friday if the GOP’s demands for domestic spending cuts are not immediately met.

A draft bill being prepared by the House Appropriations Committee on Monday night would put the Defense Department on permanent footing through the end of this fiscal year but require $12 billion in new cuts as the price for keeping domestic agencies and the State Department operating another week.
The GOP proposal would also include a provision “preventing both federal and local funds from being used to provide abortions in the District of Columbia,” according to a statement from the Appropriations Committee.

Whether this blunderbuss will be really fired—or kept as a threat—was unclear. But the turn of events Monday was ominous given the short time left before funding runs out Friday.

The day began with Obama extending his invitation for the White House meeting and negotiators were hoping for final decisions from the leadership to finish a bill before Friday’s funding cutoff. Instead Republicans came out blasting, venting their frustration with a flurry of accusatory press releases aimed at the White House — but even more so at Senate Democrats.

At a special party caucus Monday night, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) set out a range of options for the GOP, including a shutdown scenario and the new funding resolution.

The $12 billion is intended as a further down payment toward a final deal, just as $10 billion in cuts were promised under two prior extensions. But Boehner has also raised the ante by demanding total cuts of more than the $33 billion target that was the focus of talks over the weekend.

At the same time, having pursued a deal even in the face of tea party criticism, he is not giving up and even called out those in his party who had failed to support him on the last extension.

The idea of breaking out Defense will be popular with his conservatives and reminiscent of a strategy Republicans also used in the 1995 government shutdown. But giving up this political engine for just another week is risky since many think Boehner will need the Pentagon budget to enact a final deal—shutdown or not.

“I’ve made clear that their $33 billion is not enough,” Boehner said, “and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors.”

“It’s become sadly evident to me, and to the American people, that the White House and Senate Democrats are just not serious yet about enacting real spending cuts. … If the government shuts down, it will be because Senate Democrats failed to do their job.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52508.html#ixzz1IemxhUSlPresident Barack Obama called top lawmakers to the White House for a meeting Tuesday,... more

bundlebear
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10 months ago
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GOP Overreach: The Mess That Greed and Ignorance Made

Republican overreach is in the air. You can see it, smell it, taste it everywhere, as you have in years past. And the only surprise is that is that it happened so quickly this time around.

In this last election cycle, the Grand Overreaching Party seized control of the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures and governorships around the country on a platform of jobs, balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility. It took not so long before conservatives revealed their true intentions.

On the federal level there was the sideshow of Rep. Peter King's (R-NY) hearings on radical Islam. People are foreclosed upon, out of money, out of luck and suffering out there, but what do the Republicans decide to go after? NPR and Planned Parenthood, and rape victims who want an abortion. On the state level there is the ban on Sharia law and the war on the unemployed. There are birther bills, bills to eliminate birthright citizenship, and voter ID legislation to deal with the nonexistent issue of voter fraud. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder represents the epitome of overreaching, with new powers to dissolve municipal governments, throw out union contracts, and eliminate school districts.

And in states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana Pennsylvania and Ohio, talk of shared sacrifice really has meant one-way sacrifice, with cuts to programs for the poor and working people and no demands made on the wealthy. In a perverse fashion, devastating cuts in education and health are paired with equally generous tax breaks to corporations, as if no one is looking and this grave crime being committed has no witnesses. Let's not forget the attack on unions' collective bargaining rights under the guise of deficit reduction. Now, that was diabolically slick of them.

Even many Republican voters are having buyer's remorse, with recall efforts underway, and some newly elected governors losing if an election were held today. Voters, be careful what you ask for. And yet, this was predictable, with history providing examples such as the 104th and 105th Congress and the Republican Contract with America. At that time, overreach came in the form of an impeachment of President for marital infidelity, and hypocrisy--and subsequent resignations--of GOP lawmakers who were guilty of the same.

Why voters send in the same crowd time and again, knowing their track record and their tendency to perform a bait and switch, is anyone's guess. My theory is that voters were attracted to Republican candidates on the false hope that eliminating wasteful government spending would create jobs. In the past, conservatives have used the "welfare queen" as the perennial scapegoat, a "whipping girl," if you will, to attack a bloated bureaucracy and further the cause of a smaller, limited government. The racial overtones were not too subtle, as it was understood that it was a black woman living in the projects on the South Side of Chicago who, according to President Reagan, "has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."

That was the Southern Strategy that served the GOP for decades--getting poor and working class whites to vote against their economic interests by convincing them that government programs mean unfair benefits to black people. But what do you do when, as is the case today, the so-called welfare queens are all public sector workers, who are accused of draining the public coffers with their million-dollar salaries, the teachers, police officers and firefighters who are only trying to feed their families and send their children to school? And what do you do when you realize some conservative politician considers you the welfare queen and makes you the scapegoat?

In the overreaching world of the conservative Republicans in power, the poor and the working class as a whole are the welfare queens. And struggling working people will bear the burden of this new regime of austerity and lopsided shared sacrifice. GOP overreach is part of a greater problem, made possible thanks to the growing inequality in America, the concentration of wealth, the relative weakness of organized labor, and the ubiquity of corporate power. In the absence of a national industrial policy--and given the state of U.S. political system, which is sold to the highest bidder each day--everything revolves around the short-term needs of corporations. Corporations have purchased big chunks of influence in our government, so the regressive policies we are witnessing reflect these corporations' quest for short-term profits, not the long-term needs of the people. True democracy cannot sustain these conditions, but feudalism can.

But it seems the people are waking up, finally. As President George W. Bush once said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-a-love/gop-overreach-the-mess-th_b_842517.htmlRepublican overreach is in the air. You can see it, smell it, taste it everywhere, as... more

bundlebear
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11 months ago
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2 comments

GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps To Entire Families If One Member Strikes

All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer:

The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”

Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

With a record 42 million Americans on food stamps during these poor economic times, it appears that the right is simply looking for more ways to hurt working class

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/23/buried-provision-food-stamps/All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to... more

bundlebear
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11 months ago
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115 comments

Alaska Follows Wisconsin’s Lead

The growing push to restrict the collective bargaining rights of government employees... more

joeeddy
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11 months ago
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0 comments

‘Wonderful World’ – A Tribute to F**ked Up GOP Priorities (VIDEO)

With the Republican’s move to slash every social, education and health program... more

bundlebear
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11 months ago
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4 comments

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