"... the darkest secret of all, Republicans don't keep American[s] safe."

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COMMENTS:
*  ... America chose to stay out of WWII until Pearl Harbor. But the current crop of wars aren't about keeping us safe, they are about profits for mega corps.
*  Bought and paid for by whom ? The war profteers are the ones who are buying Americans minds . War is a $ trillion racket .
*  ... Richard Clarke briefed Bush several times about an upcoming attack!  Bush was too busy with tax cuts for the rich to listen!
*  One thing I've noticed about the GOP...they will fight tooth and nail to protect an unborn fetus but have no problem sending our children to war !
    *  and forget them after they are born
*  I have said this all along. If we can't beat them then impeach them is the republican motto
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The Republicans' Secret
By Bob Burnett, October 30, 2015

In the past few days, US voters has been reminded of the reasons why we don't trust Republicans: Representative Trey Gowdy's Benghazi committee demonstrated that the GOP abuses congressional power for political purposes. The Republican threat to not raise the debt limit indicates they don't understand how the Federal government works. But it took GOP candidate Donald Trump to reveal the darkest secret of all, Republicans don't keep American safe.

Even though Republican Congressional Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy had already admitted the purpose of Representative Gowdy's Benghazi committee was not to ascertain the facts and prevent further security breaches at our embassies but rather to drive down presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, it still came as a shock to witness the Republican's abusive questioning of Clinton . This was standard Republican demagoguery. As political commentator Bob Cesca reported, the GOP has a long history of going after individuals and groups it perceives to be its adversaries: Planned Parenthood, ACORN, the IRS, peace activists, political commentators, and on and on.

It's one thing to abuse government process and quite another to refuse to pay its bills. That's what the debt-limit crisis is about. According to the US Treasury Department, "The debt limit is the total amount of money that the United States government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments." When asked if he would approve raising the debt limit, Republican Presidential candidate Ben Carson responded, after repeated prodding, "What I'm saying is what we have to do is restructure the way that we create debt." Like most Republicans, Carson appears to be unable to differentiate between the federal budget (where we run up debts) and the debt-limit (where we set a boundary on paying debts already incurred).

But the most devastating of the Republicans' dirty secrets was revealed during a testy exchange between Republican presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Donald Trump. Goaded into defending his brother, George, Jeb responded, "He kept us safe!" Trump responded, "The fact is we had the worst attack in the history of our country during his reign. Jeb (Bush) said we were safe during his reign. That wasn't true." For once, Trump was right.

CNN security analyst, Peter Bergen, observed,

Before 9/11 senior Bush administration officials did not see al Qaeda as the serious threat it was, despite the fact that the group had blown up two American embassies in Africa in 1998, killing more than 200 people, and had also bombed the USS Cole warship two years later. Also, they ignored multiple, clear warnings from the CIA during the summer of 2001 about a likely al Qaeda attack...

George W. Bush did not protect the US from the horrendous 9/11 attacks. To make things worse he then launched an unnecessary war in Iraq. Newsweek observed:

After September 11, forcing a regime change in Baghdad made good political sense for the Republicans... the administration needed to be seen as doing more in its declared global war on terror. By going after Saddam they would be well positioned to "wrap themselves in the flag" and compensate for missing the September 11 attacks.

(The US Iraq casualties were 4493 dead and 32021 wounded; the estimated cost was at least $2 trillion.)

"Dubya" wasn't unique among Republican Presidents in failing to keep America safe and launching unnecessary military actions. In the modern era, this ineptitude began with Richard Nixon. As soon as he became President, in 1969, Nixon scuttled pending talks to end the Vietnam War and authorized bombing of North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. (More than 21,000 Americans were killed on Nixon's watch and more than a million civilians died.)

Ronald Reagan send US troops into Lebanon. In April 1983, 63 Americans were killed during an attack on the US embassy in West Beirut. In October of 1983, 241 Americans were killed in an attack on US troop barracks in Beirut. To restore his popularity, later than October, Reagan authorized the invasion of Grenada.

During the first year of his presidency, George H. W. Bush authorized the invasion of Panama, the first "regime change" war. Two years later, Bush authorized the first Gulf War. Barry Lando observed: "[George H.W. Bush] sent American troops half way around the world to launch the First Gulf War--an error of tragic proportions; responsible in its own way for much of the horror that afflicts the Greater Middle East (and America) to this day."

Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II used the military to accomplish political objectives. They weren't focused on keeping American safe. It's no wonder that Bush II launched a poorly thought out war in Iraq and as a consequence destabilized the Middle East, creating ISIS and the current chaos. Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II did not govern by a strategic plan but rather a set of ad hoc tactics intended to improve their short-term political futures. These Republicans didn't keep us safe.
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"Subnormal".... I guess that's an adequate description of Trump.

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COMMENTS: 
*  Nobody thought or said we couldn't go any lower.  There is no bottom.
*  I'm not a trump fan, but he did not insult mexican immigrants...he went after ILLEGAL immigrants who BREAK OUR LAWS!  but leftwing writers don't care about facts or laws...
    *  If he had worded it that way in his announcement speech I think it would have been better received.  I watched his announcement live and he did not make that distinction until the next day.
*  Can you believe that complete morons actually come on here and defend Donald Trump. It is because of those moronic sheep that guys like Donald Trump are rising to the top. Brainwashing as always work but Trump is taking it to record Heights.
*  ... Yet another Bagger ignoramus that thinks that 65 million people don't pay taxes.  Here's a clue for the monumentally clueless low information Bagger.  Income taxes are only one tax.  There are sales, excise, property, social security, sin, licensing, gasoline, etc. taxes too, not to mention the hidden taxes built into the price of all goods and services.   It just doesn't get any stupider than that.
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Donald Trump’s SNL hosting gig is a new low in U.S. politics
By Alisa Solomon, October 31, 2015

Just when society thought it couldn’t sink any further

Well over half of the claims Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump is making on the campaign trail are mostly false, false or “pants on fire” whoppers, according to the nonpartisan watchdog group factcheck.org.

Still, Trump is right about one thing, at least: As he told the Saturday Night Live audience back in 2004 when he first served as guest host, “I’m a ratings machine.”

That’s the likely reason NBC has invited Trump to return as guest host on SNL Nov. 7, despite cutting ties with him in June. After the real estate mogul announced his candidacy in a speech branding Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, the network decried his “derogatory” remarks, fired him from The Celebrity Apprentice, and canceled broadcasts of his Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants. Less than four months later, the “respect and dignity for all people” that NBCUniversal sanctimoniously asserted at the time as “cornerstones of our values” seem to have been trumped by the candidate’s brazen braggadocio, which has proven to draw eyeballs to TV screens like flies to fresh manure. After all, Trump’s recent appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert gave both programs a ratings jolt.

NBC shows no signs of backing down, despite protests from the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, the California Latino Legislative Caucus, Brave New Films, and an online dump-Trump petition, that, at press time, has garnered more than 362,000 signatures. One way or another, all of them make what should be the indisputable point — as a trending Twitter hashtag puts it — that #RacismIsntFunny. Trump supporters quickly flooded the hashtag with disgusting racist jokes.

In its more than four decades on the air (with only two Latino and zero Latina cast members over those years), SNL has established itself as a campaign stop as important as the Iowa caucuses. Candidates visit the show — as Hillary Clinton did recently — to reach swaths of the public who seldom, if ever, tune into CSPAN, and to present themselves as easy-going, regular folks, able to poke a little fun at themselves. Hosting the program, though, gives a guest a bigger platform, and the show’s implicit imprimatur.

Maybe that’s the only role that Trump could fill, given his bully’s intolerance of even the mildest mocking. But unless SNL satirically manages to reveal the dangerous absurdity of Trump’s policy proposals — round up and deport 12 million residents of the U.S. and impose what even fellow Republican Gov. John Kasich called “fantasy tax games” — the episode will simply give another megaphone to his demagoguery. (Despite his charges that the media are out to get him, Trump has enjoyed so much free air time that he has yet to spend any of his $5.5 million campaign expenditures — not, by the way, entirely his own money, as he falsely claimed during Wednesday night’s Republican debate — on advertising.) Giving Trump the hosting spot could also open SNL to charges that it is violating FCC equal-time rules.

Every four years, critics contend that we have crossed the line that should be separating the solemn business of electing the leader of the free world from the frivolous amusements of showbiz. It’s an age-old argument. Presidential preoccupation with public image goes as far back as, well, George Washington, and Hollywood has helped political candidates craft their personas since the 1930s. John F. Kennedy eagerly produced himself as a celebrity. Richard M. Nixon flitted through an appearance on Laugh-In. Ronald Reagan’s campaign specifically employed TV-setting tactics, and Bill Clinton hardly considered it beneath his dignity to blare a saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. Over the decades, the border between national duty and diversion has shifted, granting more and more territory to spectacle.

Trump — and the current cultural climate, in which he is hardly the only Republican candidate to have lost touch with reality — may have brought us to a new low. At a time when voting is treated with the gravity of clicking on a Facebook “like” button, and much of the purported political coverage of the campaign prefers smackdown-style theatrics to real consideration of the issues, SNL’s invitation to Trump reveals how politicians aren’t just exploiting the entertainment industry for its reach. The entertainment industry can exploit their blustering buffoonery for laughs.

In his monologue for that 2004 SNL gig, Trump crowed, “I am about to become the highest-paid television personality in America. And as everyone in this room knows, ‘highest-paid’ means ‘best.’” It’s a telling statement about Trump’s ideas for policy — which blame poor people themselves for their predicament — and, sadly, a telling statement about NBC’s acquiescence to a new subnormal.
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"Springtime"? How about year 'round?

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COMMENTS: 
*  Carson's claim of no involvement reminds me of watching the TV show :Cops", when they catch a perp in a stolen car with drugs in his pocket he says "this ain't my car, these ain't my pants, I'm not me!".
*  The Republican clown bus is filled and overflowing with carnival barkers all trying to sell their majic tonics to cure all that ails America just keeps on a rolling.  Beware! Just by putting decades old failed Republican policies into a new bottle and slapping Ronnie Reagan's name on it doesn't make it a cure all.  The Republican candidates' plans for replacing healthcare, immigration, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid reform, job creation and economic growth and dealing with the Middle-East are simply frightening!
*  He's not religious. He talks about religion to get votes and to sell worthless snake oil to sick people in return for money. To me, that's not religion; it's something else altogether.
*  There's a difference between an MD helping a company sell snake oil and someone else "flogging products for money." If it's no big deal, why did Ben Carson lie about it?
*  It started with R. Reagan, the original snake oil salesman, who could sell anything, even arms for hostages. He could demonize, like Joe McCarthy with a smile, anyone who disagreed, and the rubes bought that as well.
*   The Republican long con began at least as early as trickle-down, when the targets were told that government is the problem and that cutting it to the nub would benefit them. It's been downhill since then (except, of course, for the money that has surged upward into the pockets of the wealthy).  The new edition of the Republican Party is in many ways the same as the old edition.
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Springtime for Grifters
By Paul Krugman, October 30, 2015

At one point during Wednesday’s Republican debate, Ben Carson was asked about his involvement with Mannatech, a nutritional supplements company that makes outlandish claims about its products and has been forced to pay $7 million to settle a deceptive-practices lawsuit. The audience booed, and Mr. Carson denied being involved with the company. Both reactions tell you a lot about the driving forces behind modern American politics.

As it happens, Mr. Carson lied. He has indeed been deeply involved with Mannatech, and has done a lot to help promote its merchandise. PolitiFact quickly rated his claim false, without qualification. But the Republican base doesn’t want to hear about it, and the candidate apparently believes, probably correctly, that he can simply brazen it out. These days, in his party, being an obvious grifter isn’t a liability, and may even be an asset.

And this doesn’t just go for outsider candidates like Mr. Carson and Donald Trump. Insider politicians like Marco Rubio are simply engaged in a different, classier kind of scam — and they are empowered in part by the way the grifters have defined respectability down.

About the grifters: Start with the lowest level, in which marketers use political affinity to sell get-rich-quick schemes, miracle cures, and suchlike. That’s the Carson phenomenon, and it’s just the latest example of a long tradition. As the historian Rick Perlstein documents, a “strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers” goes back half a century. Direct-mail marketing using addresses culled from political campaigns has given way to email, but the game remains the same.

At a somewhat higher level are marketing campaigns more or less tied to what purports to be policy analysis. Right-wing warnings of imminent hyperinflation, coupled with demands that we return to the gold standard, were fanned by media figures like Glenn Beck, who used his show to promote Goldline, a firm selling gold coins and bars at, um, inflated prices. Sure enough, Mr. Beck has been a vocal backer of Ted Cruz, who has made a return to gold one of his signature policy positions.

Oh, and former Congressman Ron Paul, who has spent decades warning of runaway inflation and is undaunted by its failure to materialize, is very much in the business of selling books and videos showing how you, too, can protect yourself from the coming financial disaster.

At a higher level still are operations that are in principle engaging in political activity, but mainly seem to be generating income for their organizers. Last week The Times published an investigative report on some political action committees raising money in the name of anti-establishment conservative causes. The report found that the bulk of the money these PACs raise ends up going to cover administrative costs and consultants’ fees, very little to their ostensible purpose. For example, only 14 percent of what the Tea Party Leadership Fund spends is “candidate focused.”

You might think that such revelations would be politically devastating. But the targets of such schemes know, just know, that the liberal mainstream media can’t be trusted, that when it reports negative stories about conservative heroes it’s just out to suppress people who are telling the real truth. It’s a closed information loop, and can’t be broken.

And a lot of people live inside that closed loop. Current estimates say that Mr. Carson, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz together have the support of around 60 percent of Republican voters.

Furthermore, the success of the grifters has a profound effect on the whole party. As I said, it defines respectability down.

Consider Mr. Rubio, who has emerged as the leading conventional candidate thanks to Jeb Bush’s utter haplessness. There was a time when Mr. Rubio’s insistence that $6 trillion in tax cuts would somehow pay for themselves would have marked him as deeply unserious, especially given the way his party has been harping on the evils of budget deficits. Even George W. Bush, during the 2000 campaign, at least pretended to be engaged in conventional budgeting, handing back part of a projected budget surplus.

But the Republican base doesn’t care what the mainstream media says. Indeed, after Wednesday’s debate the Internet was full of claims that John Harwood, one of the moderators, lied about Mr. Rubio’s tax plan. (He didn’t.) And in any case, Mr. Rubio sounds sensible compared to the likes of Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump. So there’s no penalty for his fiscal fantasies.

The point is that we shouldn’t ask whether the G.O.P. will eventually nominate someone in the habit of saying things that are demonstrably untrue, and counting on political loyalists not to notice. The only question is what kind of scam it will be.
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So, crash already! Put us out of your misery.

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"... the criticism most often leveled against [Rubio]: that he’s more interested in advancing his political ambitions than in serving the public." That's obvious.

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COMMENTS: 
*  Marco ripoff Rubio tea party favorite stealing money from Florida taxpayers. Hypocrite?
*  The GOP hates to give $12,000 to an unwed mother with two children. But they see nothing wrong when a "pretty face", smooth talker senator receives a $170,000 tax payer salary while not doing what he was elected to do.  That's what I call POLITICAL WELFARE.
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Analysis: How Marco Rubio deals with debate questions he doesn’t like
By Patricia Mazzei, October 29, 2015

Crown a new prince! Marco Rubio, dragon slayer, badly wounded his chief rival, Jeb Bush, a member of Republican royalty, leaving him limping in the battlefield of presidential politics.

This was the conclusion that emerged from the latest Republican primary debate Wednesday night.

The Florida senator deserved the praise for his unquestionable polish. The headlines for Bush, the former Florida governor, were terrible. His campaign is “not on life support,” Bush maintained to reporters Thursday in New Hampshire. Ouch.

Rubio, in contrast, basked in a marathon set of morning-after TV interviews. His campaign asked elated donors for more money. He was an uncontested winner.

But Rubio, for all his poise, didn’t fully answer one of the key questions he didn’t like Wednesday night. And he deflected another one entirely, relying instead on his tried-and-true personal American Dream story to avoid mustering a direct response.

Asked why he doesn’t resign from the U.S. Senate he dislikes so much, Rubio pivoted to past presidential candidates who also missed lots of votes. Asked if his poor handling of personal finances disqualifies him from running the federal government, Rubio instead told the heart-tugging story of his parents’ humble beginnings.

Both were deft responses and trademark Rubio. But they might get more difficult for him to deliver as his star in the presidential race rises — even if his incomplete answers don’t ultimately hurt him in the theater of politics.

“Yes, it gets harder to dodge questions when the format permits strong follow-ups and there are only two or three people on stage,” David Birdsell, dean of the Baruch College School of Public Affairs in New York and an expert on presidential debates, told the Miami Herald in an email. “That isn’t to say that the follow-ups are always successful or that candidates aren’t adept at answering the questions they want rather than the questions they’re asked.

“Indirection and substitution are effective strategies that sometimes work very well, as did Senator Rubio’s riposte to Governor Bush’s chiding last night.”

His campaign noted Thursday that Rubio has been asked about both his missed votes and his finances in the past. He told CNN last week that he wants to be president so Senate votes can be “meaningful” again; he told Fox News in July that he’s proud of his current finances and it’s his record on financial and tax policy in the Florida House and Senate that voters should consider.

Rubio’s poor Senate attendance is relevant not because he’s not in Washington during the campaign but because he missed a lot of work even before he was a presidential candidate — and because he’s spoken with so much disdain about his comfortable taxpayer-funded job. Voters can’t stand Congress, which hasn’t been getting much of anything done, but Rubio’s absenteeism plays into the criticism most often leveled against him: that he’s more interested in advancing his political ambitions than in serving the public.

Though Rubio didn’t address that point during the debate, he appeared intent to counter the narrative in some of the TV interviews Thursday morning.

To NBC’s Today Show: “For me, it’s an incredible honor to serve in the United States Senate. I enjoy very much to serve the people of Florida.”

To CNN’s New Day: “I don’t like missing votes, I hate it. . . . But here’s what I would hate more, and that is to wake up on the first Wednesday of November in 2016 to the news that Hillary Clinton has been elected president of the United States.”

None of the interviews tackled Rubio’s finances, which have plagued him for years.

Neither Rubio’s personal spending on Republican Party of Florida credit cards — nor his former Tallahassee house shared with former lawmaker David Rivera that briefly went into foreclosure, nor his second mortgage on his West Miami home — ever got in the way of Rubio’s political success. He uses his past student-loan debt to make himself relatable to voters, and he cracks jokes on the campaign trail about the brand-new fishing boat he bought with royalties he made from his 2012 political memoir, An American Son.

What CNBC moderator Becky Quick tried to get Rubio to explain Wednesday night, though, was his most recent questionable decision: to liquidate a $68,000 retirement account, incurring probably about $24,000 in taxes and fees, despite having a $174,000-a-year Senate salary and receiving more than $30,000 in book royalties in 2014. He had already made more than $1 million from it.

Rubio has said he needed a new refrigerator, and an air-conditioning repair, and more money for his four children’s private-school tuition. His explanation Wednesday didn’t even attempt to go that far.

“This debate needs to be about the men and women across this country that are struggling on a daily basis to provide for their families the better future that we’ve always said this country is all about,” he said.

Then, after a follow-up question about his lucrative memoir, he made another classic Rubio move and cracked a joke.

“It’s available in paperback,” he said, “if you’re interested in buying my book.”
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Has anybody investigated Kobach's voting record? Is he squeaky clean?

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The 3 People Being Prosecuted For Voter Fraud In Kansas
By Kira Lerner, October 30, 2015

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a notorious voter suppression architect, is the only election official in the country with prosecutorial power. He secured that authority earlier this year, the latest step in his crusade to go after what he views as rampant voter fraud throughout his state.

Earlier this month, he filed his first criminal charges. The targets: three people he says committed voter fraud in the 2010 election.

Research shows that new voting restrictions enacted by states across the country prevents voters — particularly minorities and younger citizens — from casting ballots. And according to the Brennan Center for Justice, voter fraud is a non-issue and most alleged fraud in elections relates to unintentional mistakes by voters or election administrators.

But Kobach would disagree. To him, the three people he’s decided to prosecute have committed a “serious crime.” One is convicted of a felony, meaning he faces up to seven months in prison. Two others face misdemeanor charges.

Some information about these potential convicts:

Steven Gaedtke and Betty Gaedtke

Steven Gaedtke, 60, and Betty Gaedtke, 61 have been charged with misdemeanors for allegedly voting in both Kansas and Arkansas during the 2010 general election. Steven, a Vietnam veteran, and Betty, a volunteer domestic violence educator, built a cabin in Arkansas when they retired. In 2010, the couple applied for advance ballots in Kansas and submitted them. But at the time, they were traveling back and forth between Kansas and their new cabin in Arkansas, and they also voted in person in Arkansas. Because 2010 was not a presidential election year, the Gaedtkes did not understand that they were doing anything wrong because they weren’t voting for the same candidates twice.

“It was a stressful time for them and in the confusion they made a mistake,” Trey Pettlon, their attorney, told the Kansas City Star. “They didn’t intend to do anything illegal. They have a long track record of being good citizens.”

The Gaedtkes’ case will be heard in court on December 3.

Lincoln L. Wilson

The felony complaint filed against 64-year-old Lincoln L. Wilson alleges that he voted in 2010, 2012, and 2014 in Kansas despite not being lawfully registered, according to the Wichita Eagle. Wilson, who lives part time in both Kansas and Colorado, admitted to voting in both states.

“But I know for a fact that I only voted for one president,” Wilson told the Eagle. “The issues in Kansas that I vote for would’ve been for that general election, such as property tax … and if I voted for a senator or a representative in the state of Kansas, that would have nothing to do with a senator or a representative in the state of Colorado.”

Wilson said he did not understand that he could not vote in two states because neither state’s voter registration form was a federal form. He thought he could only vote in one county in each of his home states.

Wilson, who said he was shocked to find out he was being prosecuted, will appear in court for the first time on November 3. He faces three counts of election perjury.

***

Kobach told the Eagle that “the evidence in both cases is very strong that the individuals in question intentionally voted multiple times in the same election.”

Since taking office in 2011, Kobach has attempted to purge the state’s voter rolls and pushed for the enactment of a voter ID law. He says he has identified 100 cases of potential voting in the 2014 election — a tiny percentage of the total number of votes cast — and sought prosecutorial power because he claimed district attorneys did not have the time or resources to adequately prosecute these crimes.

Kobach, who spearheaded many draconian anti-immigrant laws including Arizona’s SB 1070, has also aimed voter suppression efforts at immigrants. He enacted a law in 2013 requiring people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and created a list of roughly 12,000 suspended voter registration forms in the first few months. But after a year, he admitted that more than one-third of the 20,000 voters whose registrations were suspended were actually eligible voters.
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Republican House committee chairs ignore already-proposed, permanent legislation to extend the expiring 9/11 health and compensation programs and announced temporary measures. So, Ryan, how are you going to handle this?

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COMMENTS: 
*  Republican lawmakers are just disgusting . All you have to do is look at the video and photographs of that day to know those first responders would be subject to many pulmonary related illness...
*  "It feels to me like it was drafted by junior staff who don’t know anything."  That pretty much sums up most Republicans in Congress these days.
*  And really, even before this pathetic move, there was plenty of reason to vote against Republicans for any office anywhere. That's the only way we can send them a message that will stick. Vote Democratic...no matter what., even though there are a few decent Republicans out there. I just can't think of any right at the moment.
*  Apparently wearing an American flag lapel pins is a much easier way for Republicans to show their support for the 9/11 responders.
*  Everybody seems to think Ryan didn't set this up. Just another "cut spending" effort of Mr. budget.
*   Honestly, I did think they would wait a few days, but I guess in the spirit of Halloween they couldn't restrain their evil ways.  All jokes aside, republicans had full control of the congress and White House on 9/11 and for the following five years. If they cared for first responders why didn't they set up a health fund for them then? Actions speak louder than words!
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Paul Ryan's Chairmen Do End Run On 9/11 Responders

A permanent 9/11 bill has majority support, but two congressmen decided to write their own temporary bills instead.

By Michael McAuliff, October 30, 2015

Two of House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) newly empowered committee chairmen took immediate advantage Thursday of the freshly elected leader's pledge to give power back to committees -- and may have handed him a 9/11-related publicity disaster.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the head of the Energy and Commerce Committee, both announced measures to temporarily extend the expiring 9/11 health and compensation programs.

In the process, they appear to have ignored permanent 9/11 legislation that was already proposed and sponsored by a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a majority of more than 240 members in the House.

That bill is universally backed by 9/11 responders and advocates, and they were furious the two chairmen decided to ignore a measure that already has enough support to pass. They wanted to make sure Ryan heard that they were not pleased with the first major legislation to be rolled out on the new speaker's watch.

"On a day when Republicans voted for a new speaker of the House, and promised they are turning over a new leaf, the House Judiciary Congressman Bob Goodlatte recklessly and without regard for the actual needs of 9/11 responders introduced his own version of the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act," said John Feal, the head of the FealGood Foundation advocacy group.

He left out Upton, because Upton's bill dealing with health treatment was still in draft form. Goodlatte's bill would provide compensation at a similar level to the current Zadroga act, which is estimated to meet less than half of the need identified by an independent evaluator.

"This bizarre act of unilateral action was ironically done the same day the James Zadroga Health and Compensation Act crossed the 60-vote threshold to make the bill filibuster proof," Feal said, noting that the existing, permanent bill would pass easily. "Even more bizarre, Chairman Goodlatte didn’t consult with the House bill sponsors."

"It's an insult, is what it is," said Karrie Boswell, a Virginia firefighters' union member with 27 years of service in Fairfax, Virginia, who thought Ryan might have to intervene.

"It might be the very first test of his leadership, to see how he handles it," Boswell told The Huffington Post.

Ryan declared Thursday that he wanted the House to return to so-called regular order, where committees work on legislation before it goes to the House floor. If Goodlatte and Upton take up their only measures, the popular one backed by 9/11 advocates will never reach the floor.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the lead sponsor of the bill, said Friday if Ryan disregards the decision reached by House and Senate lawmakers, it would "show a grave lack of judgment to unwind the will of such a vast majority."

"I hope the current speaker can analyze the issue on the facts and the merit and not make such a grave mistake in his first few weeks."

A spokesman for Ryan did not immediately answer a request for comment.

Representatives for Goodlatte declined to speak on the record, but a committee staffer said the idea behind writing a new bill was to balance the needs of the victims with the money Congress could raise to fund the compensation program. And since the current program sunsets in 2016 after five years on the books, Goodlatte thought a similar five-year period would be better than a permanent extension, giving Congress a chance to re-evaluate in the future.

Goodlatte also wanted to use the bill to raise compensation for victims of Iranian terrorism, and other acts of terror that have been adjudicated in the courts, the aide said, adding that such amendments would not have been possible on the existing 9/11 bill.

Gillibrand, however, countered that she would have been happy to work with the House chairmen but they never spoke to her. She said she was particularly peeved because she spoke to Upton just a couple of days ago and asked if he supported her permanent bill.

"I’m extremely disappointed that without calling me, without discussing with me, he then introduced a five-year bill," she said. "It feels to me like it was drafted by junior staff who don’t know anything."

Advocates for first responders did not raise objections to helping other victims of terrorism, but weren't sure why that couldn't be done in a separate bill.

And they were especially upset that both Goodlatte's measure and Upton's only last five years.

“As a responder, that is like saying 'I see you have a fire on the 10th floor, but I am only going to the fifth floor,'" said Richard Alles, Deputy Chief of the FDNY and a board member of Citizens for the Extension of the James Zadroga Act. "Anyone else but Congress would fix the problem, not leave it hanging. Cancer does not last five years. This is basically saying we have to drag you all back here again and again to get the help we need.”

When the original Zadroga Act passed, it was limited to five years, in part to show that it would not be subject to fraud and abuse. Since it has not been, responders say it's time for Congress to stop making them come hat in hand to lawmakers, and let them just worry about surviving.

Boswell recalled how she joined a group of responders earlier this month who came to Washington to lobby their cause, after having already done so the month before when Jon Stewart visited Congress.

It was obvious to her why lawmakers should stop requiring responders to trek to D.C. with their wheelchairs and oxygen tanks. And one firefighter offered an especially poignant example.

"He was standing down in the Metro tunnel, and he explained to me that he hadn't been down in the subway in a long time," Boswell said. "And as the subway train came rumbling into the station, in advance there was a loud rumble and a big rush of air.  He said it took him right back, because he was in the second tower [of the World Trade Center] as it collapsed."

Some 4,000 responders have been diagnosed with 9/11-related cancer, and about 33,000 people are currently getting treatment in the medical program. It expired last month, but has enough cash to keep operating into next year. There are 470 Virginians in the medical program, and 85 who are eligible for compensation. In Michigan, Upton's state, there are about 80 9/11 responders, including 16 who are eligible for compensation.

"I'm just sitting here wondering how people continue to function if they have to deal with this stuff randomly in their life," said Boswell, who has been directing other responders to the Facebook pages of Goodlatte and other Virginia lawmakers. "It's absolutely time to lift this burden off their backs. They should not have to come back down here and fight again in five years."

Alles' group also maintains a site that lets people track and contact lawmakers who support and oppose the permanent Zadroga bill.
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"Rubio has said that he shows up for votes when they matter ..." Who decides what matters, Marco?

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COMMENTS: 
*  ... Are you making excuses for Rubio. He has had a poor record since he became senator... not just lately.
*  No votes. I mean he fits right in with the Do Nothing Republicons, so it is a good match.
*  So Rubio doesn't want to be labelled a quitter? Fine we'll label him a "welfare congressman" instead since he doesn't actually do the job he was elected to do and instead just sits around clooecting a check.
*  The paper that called for Rubio to resign was in FLorida - the same paper that endorsed him. I think your hometown paper has every right to complain if you are not doing your job. You were elected to represent your state's voters. This has nothing to do with race - I am a liberal and live in Illinois. I didn;t like it when Obama did it in 2007 either and it was in the news here. People just forget.
*  And then there's the $174,000/year plus beneifts he's soaking the taxpayers for. There's that. Not bad money for essentially doing nothing. Yes, others do it too. How about none of them do it. If you're going to run for office and collect your salary, then do your job. If you're going to run for another office full time, then resign and run for office.  What other job would let you collect your salary and benefits while no longer showing up for work as you spend full time job hunting for another job?
*   Why wont he leave the senate? Because he's seen his polling numbers - he knows he has two chances of getting the nom - slim and none.
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As criticism mounts over missed votes, Marco Rubio shows no sign of resigning
By Ledyard King, October 30, 2015

He says he’s frustrated with the job, and he hardly bothers to show up to vote.

So why doesn’t Florida Sen. Marco Rubio heed his critics — including his one-time mentor, former Florida governor Jeb Bush — and leave the Senate so he can pursue the presidency full time?

Rubio's campaign won't give a direct response, referring only to the senator's previous statements.

Rubio has said that he shows up for votes when they matter and that his office continues to help constituents and provide other services. He notes that plenty of other senators who ran for the White House also had high absentee rates, and none quit the Senate.

“A lot of these votes won't mean anything,” he told CNN. "They’re not going to pass. And even if they if they did, the president would veto it.”

The short answer on why Rubio won't resign is that it probably wouldn't help his campaign to be labeled a quitter. And his Senate seat gives Rubio a high-profile platform to weigh in on key issues.

"Marco can hold that as an ace in the hole,"said Keith Fitzgerald, a political science professor at New College of Florida in Sarasota and a former Democratic state lawmaker who served with Rubio in the Florida House. "At some point, he can use his position to gain center stage by being a key opponent to something that they want to do or possibly an advocate of something  they want to accomplish. So why give that up?"

Rubio and his defenders say he’s really no different from plenty of other senators who have run for the Oval Office.

They point to John McCain of Arizona, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barack Obama of Illinois, all of whom sacrificed substantial portions of their day jobs to run for president. This year, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina also have missed a large number of votes while campaigning for the presidency.

From 1972 through the 2016 election cycle, 45 sitting senators have sought the presidency but only one – Bob Dole of Kansas – resigned before the election, according to Smart Politics, a nonpartisan blog run by University of Minnesota Professor Eric J. Ostermeier.

But Rubio’s missed votes have become a prominent talking point for his critics. That includes Bush, who was close to Rubio when Bush was Florida's governor and Rubio was ascending to speaker of the Florida House.

“Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work,” Bush told Rubio at Wednesday's GOP presidential debate.

It's not surprising that Bush, struggling in the polls, would go after his former protege on absenteeism. Rubio has missed more floor votes than any other senator this year (including all eight votes this week). And Bush and Rubio are competing to be the No. 1 GOP establishment candidate, with Rubio in the lead.

“I don’t remember you ever complaining about John McCain’s vote record,” Rubio shot back. “The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you.”
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"My mother hasn’t been this fired up about a politician in 28 years—and that should scare the hell out of the GOP."

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My mother, a Hillary Clinton supporter, is the Republicans’ worst nightmare
BEWARE THE MOTHER SCORNED
By Meredith Bennett-Smith, October 30, 2015

My mother has never been a big fan of politicians. She finds their big talk and Beltway calculations incredibly irritating, a droning made the worse by the feedback loop of our 24-hour cable news cycle. Growing up, I generally looked to my father for advice on what ballot measures were worthwhile, and which candidates were wholly unqualified to hold public office. Although she takes her civic duty seriously, I know my mom heads to the polls not because she likes the candidates, but because she worries what might happen if she didn’t.

I don’t mean to imply that my mother is not political, however—quite the contrary. This is a woman with moral convictions so strong they intimidate. In her 20s, she marched against South African apartheid. Now a music teacher, she treats the civil rights movement as the core of her curriculum, year round. She thinks Barack Obama—who she voted for twice—is too conservative.

For those American stalwarts who shun divisive politics but feel the burden of their civic duty–the 2016 presidential election is shaping up to be quite the colorful contest. On the conservative side, the media has stayed busy attempting to explain how a real estate mogul-turned reality star, and a neurosurgeon-turned amateur Holocaust historian, have become the Republican frontrunners. On the Democratic side, the mainstream narrative has focused on more intangible questions like candidate authenticity, and of course, “likability.”  Although Hillary Clinton scored points for her well-prepared debate performance and her stately calm amid the chaos of Congress’s Benghazi debacle, she has long been criticized for her political connections and well-monied allies on Wall Street. In contrast, Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, has cultivated an image as an uber-leftist outsider (debatable) and passionate straight-talker (true) who riles up his opponents and is lighting a fire under the liberal base.

On paper, Sanders is the candidate people like my mom should be falling over themselves to support—a pseudo-hippie and self-described socialist from Vermont who sprinkles his speeches with buzzwords like political revolution and income inequality.

And yet right smack in the middle of an unnecessarily heated argument over apartment furniture, there was my mother, professing her love for Hillary in terms that would make any DNC partisan proud. “Today is a national day of rejoicing,” she typed. “[Joe] Biden isn’t running. So maybe my dream of Hillary as president is still possible … A woman may not come this close to the White House again in my lifetime.”

Whether Clinton’s political platform is all that different from Sanders’ continues to be a matter of some debate. But something almost everyone seems able to agree on is the Democratic frontrunner’s troubling “enthusiasm gap.” It only takes a quick Google search to turn up dozens upon dozens of articles bemoaning everything from her boring speeches to her boring book to her boring campaign events.

Gender bias has a role to play in all of this, of course. After being called out for their overt sexism during the 2008 campaign, Clinton’s opponents are much smarter this time around. But that doesn’t mean they’ve given up. In an intelligent parsing of the problem for The New Yorker, Allyson Hobbs notes that the former secretary of state has been forced to walk a very fine line indeed. “Our culture, suffused with sexism, plays the role of the arbiter of a candidate’s authenticity.” Hobbs writes. “[Clinton] cannot appear too strong without risking her likability ratings; she cannot appear too vulnerable without her credibility suffering.”

Conventional wisdom holds that an uninspiring Clinton will struggle to win over jaded independent voters and may even lose some support among an exhausted Democratic base. But while she may not have the rhetorical elegance of Barack or the unvarnished anger of Bernie, pundits continue to overlook Clinton’s massive motivational factor—if not Hillary, then who?

Those of use who grew up in the era of the Clinton and Bush dynasties have seen women on presidential ballots—on both sides of the political aisle—for the past eight years. But my mother was born in the 1950s, and they have waited a long time for a female candidate this qualified. She comes from a generation that vividly remembers, for example, the fate of Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential candidate to represent a major American political party. For these women, the executive branch’s glass ceiling seems increasingly impenetrable. I think many in this cohort, my mother included, believed they would not live to see a woman in the White House.

And then, along came Hillary.

Among the approximately 40 million Baby Boomers aged 65 and older, around 56% are women. That’s a pretty powerful voting bloc, especially when you consider that fewer than 130 million Americans voted in the 2012 presidential election—an election in which Barack Obama garnered a mere 5 million more votes than the runner-up, Republican candidate Mitt Romney. In fact, in 2012 Romney won the two-party vote among male voters by 8%—and still lost to Obama in both the popular vote and electoral college.

The 2016 election is a full year away—a veritable lifetime in American politics. A lot can change between now and next Nov. 8. But ultimately opponents of Hillary minimize the symbolic power of her gender at their own peril. My mother hasn’t been this fired up about a politician in 28 years—and that should scare the hell out of the GOP.
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"... the candidates, while certainly able to rally the audience, failed to substantiate claims such as 'you're wrong,' 'that's not true' and 'I never said that.'"

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COMMENTS: 
*  the moderartors were ill prepared, you need to be ready for the candidate to say--'no I did not say that'.
    *  Agreed, particularly given the penchant of Republicans to blame the questioner when they don't like the question.
*  Yammer yammer yammer. Sputter sputter sputter. Lie lie lie. That's it. The entire "debate" in a nutshell. Now, you don't ahve to watch it. You're welcome.
*  I think it is pretty clear that the vast majority of GOP candidates this year would be better at whipping up a lynch mob than making coherent policy proposals. So, naturally they would deflect and attack when being asked to say something accurate that makes sense. Mobs don't respond to sense or accuracy, they run on pure emotion.
*  How is this new? The Right has been doing this for years. They rely on it. It's how the Right justifies it's positions and sparks it's outrage.
*  Republican candidates have been lying to their base for decades. Their base, for some very odd reason, refuses to believe they have been lied to. So long as this obtuseness exist, republicans will lie and dare anyone to call them out. All that matters is their base believes in things that never need to be proven to get their vote.
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The Weird Thing GOP Candidates Are Doing When They Get Called Out On Lies

Well, this is new.

By Ruby Mellen, October 29, 2015

Candidates made a number of misleading statements and even told some outright lies during the GOP debate Wednesday night. Sometimes they even got caught by the CNBC moderators.

But what happened next was pretty weird.

Instead of explaining themselves or clarifying their previous statements, the candidates stubbornly insisted they were right and the moderators were wrong. Given the crowd's reaction to any point made against the media, perhaps it's not actually so weird that candidates chose this route.

In an ideal world, however, a debate stage is meant to hold the candidates accountable for their records, policies and positions. It's certainly easier to employ the defense mechanism of denying the truth when it's not convenient than it is to admit that you've been caught in a lie, but it might not exactly give voters confidence that certain Republican candidates have the facts to back up their platforms.

Here are some times when candidates were caught in their own denials, deflections and contradictions and decided to dig in their heels. 

Donald Trump refused to admit he criticized Mark Zuckerberg -- even though it's on his campaign website.

The billionaire reality TV star had an exchange with CNBC reporter Becky Quick about his criticism of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

On the topic of H1B work visas, which companies can give to foreign workers for their specialized skills, Quick said to Trump, "You have been very critical of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who has wanted to increase the number of these H1Bs."

"I was not at all critical of him. I was not at all," Trump responded.

When Quick asked why she'd heard that, Trump said he didn't know.

"You people write the stuff," he quipped, getting laughs and applause from the audience.

Quick later returned to the question, saying, "You called [Rubio] 'Mark Zuckerberg's personal senator' because he was in favor of H1B."

"I never said that. I never said that," Trump claimed.

But Trump's immigration platform, as listed on his website, is critical of both the H1B visa and the Facebook CEO, as well as Rubio. So actually, his people "write the stuff." 



Ben Carson insisted his fantasy tax math was sound, and called his proven ties to a sketchy company "total propaganda."

Former neurosurgeon Ben Carson got into trouble with his tax plan when Quick said she had done the math and found the plan would bring in "less than half" of the tax revenue the federal government currently collects.

"You'd have to cut government about 40 percent to make it work with a $1.1 trillion hole," said Quick.

"That's not true," said Carson.

"It is true," Quick said. "I looked at the numbers."

Carson didn't explain where Quick may have made some errors, but he's not the only GOP candidate to have put forth a tax plan with some concerning mathematical problems.

Still, Carson said the criticism was rubbish, and that "When we put all the facts down, you'll be able to see that it's not true, it works out very well."

CNBC's Carl Quintilla also confronted Carson about his partnership with Mannatech, a nutritional supplement company that has claimed it could cure cancer and has been sued in Texas for falsely advertising its product's abilities.

Carson, speaking over the boos of audience members who apparently hated Quintilla's question, wrote off any relationship with Mannatech as "total propaganda."

Quintilla noted that Carson once appeared on the homepage of the company's website. But that's not all.

Carson has actually had a longstanding relationship with the company, which has included him giving speeches for the brand and promoting its product.

Marco Rubio wouldn't admit that a moderator was right about his tax plan. 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) went head to head with CNBC's John Harwood, who cited the Tax Foundation in saying that Rubio's tax plan gives more after-tax income to the wealthiest 1 percent than it does to the middle class.

"No that's -- you're wrong," Rubio said, refuting both the acclaimed think tank and the business journalist.

Rubio, to monstrous applause, alleged that Harwood wrote a story on this matter and had to correct it. Harwood denied that claim.

Harwood did, in fact, have to issue a correction on his coverage of Rubio's tax plan, but it was on a tweet, not a story. Earlier this month, Harwood clarified on Twitter that Rubio's tax plan would benefit the lower 10 percent proportionally more than the top 1 percent. The tweet didn't address any misinformation regarding middle class tax revenue -- and neither did Rubio -- which was what the question was about.

Ted Cruz pilloried moderators for not asking substantive questions after candidates ignored substantive questions.

If there was one topic the GOP candidates and their audience enjoyed talking about more than tax proposals and the nation's economy, it was how much the media sucks. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) expressed particular disdain for the moderators' lines of questioning, while in fact managing to dodge a legitimate question about his opposition to the current bill to raise the debt ceiling.

"The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Cruz said to uproarious applause.

"'Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don't you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?'" Cruz mimicked.

But as Ezra Klein pointed out Wednesday night, those weren't actually the questions posed to the candidates. Carson was not asked to do math -- he was asked to clarify his tax plan, which he didn't. Trump was asked if basing his platform on the promise of a gigantic border wall was a "comic-book version" of a campaign, because he has yet to come up with much solid policy beyond that.

Quintanilla pointed out that Cruz had completely deflected the question. "I asked you about the debt limit and I got no answer," he said. When Cruz then tried to answer, Quintanilla pointed out, "You used your time on something else."

In all, the candidates, while certainly able to rally the audience, failed to substantiate claims such as "you're wrong," "that's not true" and "I never said that."

Even former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who also received attention during the last GOP debate for embellishing and misrepresenting facts, did not recant on her statement that women suffered the most during President Barack Obama's first term.

"Everybody came out and said I was using wrong data," Fiorina said. "No, I’m not using wrong data."

She never said why. Perhaps because she's wrong.
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Please, America, don't let a Republican win the presidency! Not with so many SCOTUS seats at risk!

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COMMENTS: 
*  He's a joke. Someone who never has to worry about his rights or job as he's guaranteed the one he has for life...
*  Then retire Scalia. You racist, homophobic, bible thumping, conservative dip schidt.
*  Your job is not to be a politician scalia, it's to interpret constitutional law.
*  Gay marriage isn't mentioned in the constitution, but "equal protection under the law" is.  Nobody yet has come up with any reason to oppose it except for religion- which doesn't drive the law. In the absence of specific mention, the constitution says that you MUST treat everyone equally. I can't imagine how Scalia or anyone else could miss that. He sounds like another petulant 3rd grader who didn't get his way.
*  Scalia is the slipperiest slope in that court. Letting the richest corporations give unlimited money to political candidates goes against the notion of a democratic system--in a major way.
*  Isn't Scabby part of the problem? Is he not a SCOTUS 'judge"? A self-indictment?
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Justice Scalia warns that the US Supreme Court is causing the 'destruction of our democratic system'
By Jeremy Berke, October 29, 2015

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was extra fiery during a talk at Santa Clara University in California this week, saying in no uncertain terms that the court had been making a lot of bad decisions.

In his speech, Scalia said he believes the "liberal" Supreme Court is heralding the "destruction of our democratic system," according to an account from the SF Gate.

According to Scalia, the court is giving citizens rights the Constitution doesn't specifically guarantee, like gay marriage and federally subsidized health insurance.

Scalia noted that this interpretation of the US Constitution as a so-called living document arose in the 1920s, when Supreme Court justices at the time interpreted the "guarantee of due process of law to protect fundamental rights not explicitly mentioned in constitutional text," according [to] SF Gate.

To Scalia, this was the beginning of a slippery slope that the US will struggle to recover from.

At the bottom of this slippery slope, according to Scalia, is the now-famous Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized gay marriage across the country. In his dissent, his position is crystal clear: "To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation."

In the landmark cases the Supreme Court decided this year, Scalia has found himself in the minority. In King v. Burwell, the decision that upheld the Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — Scalia derided his fellow justices' interpretation of the law as, "jiggery-pokery," and called the eventual decision in favor of the ACA, "pure applesauce."

With three current judges over 79 — the average age of retirement for Supreme Court justices is 78 — the next president will have a lot of appointments to make. If the Democrats take the White House in 2016, Scalia will certainly have more applesauce to look forward to.
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"... by rigging the congressional map with safe Republican districts, the party triggered a primary process in favor of candidates from the extreme fringe of their party."

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COMMENTS: 
*  Man, you guys on the right always have an excuse or someone else to blame for the repubs glaring failures. It's amazing. So much for being the party of personal responsibilty. Another myth debunked.
*  actually, you can thank redistricting. A la Carl Rove. The maps were redesigned to give Republicans guaranteed seats in some districts. The problem was that as you all seen in the party nomination process. Candidates would have to run increasingly right what a normal Republican would. This lead to the lunacy that is the current state of the republican party. The only way to fix this problem is to fix redistricting. What kept republican honest( or more centered) was that there was a slight chance they had to answer to the independence and Democrats in their district.
*  And typically all presidential candidates move to the center the closer we get to the presidential election - to broaden their appeal. There's no hope for the repubs on that front - it'd require time travel. The gerrymandering, the support of the tea party and the resulting extremism on the right will do lasting damage to their party in presidential elections. And it doesn't appear to be working out too well on the state level either...see kansas.
*  ... the Tea Party came about because of paranoid conspiracy-theory-loving religious wing-nuts.
*  The T-Party is not powerful enough to form a separate party so they infiltrated the GOP and has lead to its near demise as a powerful party who got things done by some compromise! Chickens coming home.........
*   Eliminate the Hastert rule of only passing legislation using GOP votes and you eliminate the power of the 40 over the 200. Simple as that. Picking up 40 Dem votes and the GOP can pass whatever it likes and the Tea Party will come back to the table and play within the rule book.
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GOP plagued by Tea Party monster it created
By Stephanie Schriock, October 29, 2015

Today, members of Congress cast their votes to elect the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. Control of the Republican caucus is officially in the hands of the same rogue, extremist fringe that forced Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) to retire and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to withdraw his candidacy to succeed him as speaker, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

Which begs the question: How did the Republicans get here?

Since the GOP took the wheel of the 114th Congress in January, all they seem to have accomplished is driving the institution into the ground—guided by ineffective, chaotic leadership that’s part and parcel with the Republican Party’s new extremism.

This clearly wasn’t the outcome Boehner (or Paul Ryan, who’s spent the last few weeks trying to decide whether or not to pursue a leadership position—the third highest in the land, by the way – no one with serious legislative ambitions has any compelling reasons to want) were anticipating in 2010 when they were busy trying to grow the Republican rank-and-file and ride the Tea Party wave to elect first-time, conservative House candidates across the country.

What the Republican leadership didn’t see coming was the monster their Tea Party-dabbling was creating. Or that their strategy of using the redistricting process to gerrymander districts to ensure Republican victories and minimize the voting power of an increasingly diverse electorate was about to back fire, big time.

That’s because, by rigging the congressional map with safe Republican districts, the party triggered a primary process in favor of candidates from the extreme fringe of their party. When the only race in the House district is the low-voter-turnout primary, the winner is the radical right-wing candidate.

And redistricting, in combination with Citizens United, created the perfect extremist storm. Candidates, who are so far right that they wouldn’t have been electable before (or at least not electable in a general election), are now virtually guaranteed safe seats for life by winning these low-voter-turnout primaries, and these candidates now have unlimited funds from deep-pocketed donors like the Koch Brothers to carry them through those primaries in districts that are already safely Republican.

To see the damage this system has done, you don’t have to look any further than the Freedom Caucus.

Of the 36 members of the caucus identified by the Pew Research Center last week, a full 72 percent were elected in 2010 or later.

In fact, 33 of the 36 Freedom Caucus Republicans won election (or reelection) in contested races in 2014—by an average of 65 percent of the general election vote.  That means they were running in districts that are so safely Republican, the only real competition in an election is among Republican candidates during the primary.  On top of that, the members’ districts are 83 percent white—in a country where people of color, unmarried women, and young people now make up the majority of the voting electorate.

And even though they make up a minority in the House overall, the Freedom Caucus’s monolithic stature within the Republican caucus means its members have been able to position themselves successfully as a voting bloc with the power to obstruct the will of their own party’s leadership.

The full membership of the Freedom Caucus has never been made public (they say it’s “nobody’s business”), but according to Pew, with the exception of one woman and one person of color, the Freedom Caucus is made up of all men, who all happen to be white. Their membership includes a man who’s called abortion worse than the Holocaust, a man who’s accused Planned Parenthood of selling “dead-baby parts,” and a man who’s supported cutting Social Security checks to seniors by two-thirds.

The Freedom Caucus’s hijacking of routine legislative proceedings like deciding a new budget to force their extreme, anti-woman agenda (or, to quote one of their Republican colleagues, “blackmailing…their colleagues who hold a different view”) has become commonplace.

The Congress that redistricting has wrought has now voted more than 50 times to repeal all or parts of Obamacare.  They’ve shut down the government at a cost of $24 billion to the U.S. taxpayer. They’ve led the fight to defund Planned Parenthood, voted to block a DC law making it illegal to fire women for taking birth control, and wasted millions of dollars and countless hours on wild-goose-chase investigations conducted through sham committees like the House Select Committee on Benghazi—which just gave us a demonstration of their ability to waste taxpayers’ time in real time by wasting 11 hours of it live on television.

Collectively, the members of the Freedom Caucus are categorically opposed to comprehensive immigration reform, and almost every policy that would benefit hardworking women and families (ending gender discrimination in pay, raising the minimum wage, and legislating paid sick and family leave are all anathema to them).  Oh, and dare we say, they are also apparently opposed to the idea of  the U.S. having a functioning government, without understanding that a functioning government is necessary to have a functioning economy.

The unfortunate truth is that this chaotic new low is the new normal for the Republican Party—and we can expect that we’ll only see more of the same.

What we need to do now is clear. Americans deserve to be able to cast their votes in competitive districts where candidates actually have to compete for their support—not districts where the electorate is gerrymandered and the results are rigged from the very beginning. They deserve to hear candidates having a real conversation about what they’re going to do to make life better for the next generation—not trying to one-up and out-extreme each other’s conservative records.

So how do we unrig these maps and fix this problem? The answer: It starts by winning elections.

Not only do we need to win legislative seats, but, in many states, electing progressive Democratic governors is our best hope of getting a better map—and giving power back to voters who’ve been disenfranchised by Republican redistricting.

Whether you’re a Democrat looking to create a more representative government and increase the diversity of perspectives at the governing table—or a Republican hoping for a return to the kind of moderation required to get things done in Washington—unrigging the map and transferring redistricting power to independent commissions is the only way forward.

With everything that matters to hardworking women and families on the line in this election, none of us can afford to sit this one out.

The next round of redistricting is in 2020—and the time to take action is now.  
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""The classic story of riches to richer. ..." Donald Trump has long tried to sell a tale of scrappy, self-made man, but it has been exposed over and over again as largely bogus."

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COMMENTS: 
*  I remember when this first came up, and Il Douché was crowing about starting out with a "small" loan of a million dollars. When it was pointed out that most Americans consider that a vast sum, he doubled down and said that compared to how much money he has now, it's a tiny, tiny amount.  How out of touch with reality can you be and still show up?
*  Trump is clueless. He has never had to work a minimum wage job in order to try to eat or pay for college and he is an egotistical maniac with the thinnest skin I have ever encountered.
*  I can think of what he could've done with all that money and it ain't pleasant!
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‘My father gave me a small loan of $1M': Colbert hammers Trump’s clueless privilege
By Adam Johnson, October 30, 2015

White billionaires born into massive privilege aren’t usually known for their rags-to-riches tales, but Trump is trying to sell one to the American public. Or, at least, to Matt Lauer.

In a recent interview, the Donald told NBC, “My whole life really has been a ‘no’ and I fought through it. It has not been easy for me, it has not been easy for me. And you know I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.”

This bit of deluded runaway privilege was too good for Stephen Colbert to pass up, so he took time out Wednesday night to mock the GOP ex-frontrunner.

“Clearly, this is an inspiring tale of a young man made good,” Colbert said. “The classic story of riches to richer. Donald was just a humble boy from the boroughs and wanted nothing more than to escape his provincial life and make his way in the big city… Donald dared to venture into a land he didn’t own.”

Donald Trump has long tried to sell a tale of scrappy, self-made man, but it has been exposed over and over again as largely bogus.

Watch the bit below:


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