Republicans News

The Republican Party Is Melting Down

1:11 pm EST July 27th, 2011 | Conservative, Republicans | 51 Comments

Welcome to the tea party. Now, unfortunately they are taking America down at the same time. But the implosion here is pretty insane.

GOPers chant ‘fire him’ at Paul Teller

House Republicans on Wednesday morning were calling for the firing of the Republican Study Committee top staffer after he was caught sending e-mails to conservative groups urging them to pressure GOP lawmakers to vote against a debt proposal from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Infuriated by the e-mails from Paul Teller, the executive director of the RSC, members started chanting “Fire him, fire him!” while Teller stood silently at a closed-door meetings of House Republicans.

NYT

Members of the House Republican caucus said after a morning meeting that Mr. Boehner opened by urging the rank and file to “get your ass in line,” but then listened as many of them voiced lingering concerns.

Insisting to members that their bill, rather than the one offered by Senate Democrats, was the path to an agreement, Mr. Boehner added: “This is the bill. I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me,” recalled people who attended the meeting.

Topic: Tea Party, US House

RNC Fundraising Lagging Steele Era

12:20 pm EST July 21st, 2011 | Republicans | 8 Comments

It’s pretty surprising that the Republicans aren’t doing well raising funds, but even moreso that they did a better job under Michael Steele. Steele was a gaffetastic buffoon, but apparently knew more about raising cash – the real job of a party chairman – than Priebus does.

It makes this nonsense about criminal fundraising seem even more like the desperate gambit it is.

Herman Cain Would Like To Remind You: He Hates Muslims

12:50 pm EST July 18th, 2011 | Conservative, Religion, Republicans | 24 Comments

Herman Cain isn’t going to get the Republican nomination, but until the day he drops out he’s going to spend his time saying horrible things that pander to the worst of the right’s base. Already he’s on record for not allowing Muslims in his cabinet, or requiring a special loyalty oath from them. Now the GOP’s most outwardly bigoted candidate targets mosques:

During a discussion on “Fox News Sunday” of a proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. that has drawn protests, legal challenges and even arson, host Chris Wallace asked the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO his feelings about communities that wish to ban mosques.

“Yes, they have the right to do that,” Cain replied.

No, none of these people have either read the constitution nor have they understood it.

Topic: 2012 Election, Herman Cain

VIDEO: Unreleased ’94 Kennedy Ad Hits Romney On His Federal Bailout

10:19 am EST July 14th, 2011 | Republicans | 7 Comments

From Politico:

Topic: 2012 Election, Mitt Romney

Rick Perry, Closet Confederate Sympathizer?

10:39 am EST July 13th, 2011 | Republicans | 9 Comments

It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

A 1998 voting guide published by a leading neoconfederate group and obtained by Salon not only endorses Perry for lieutenant governor, it also describes him as “a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.” Perry’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the governor’s possible membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Topic: Rick Perry

Yet Another Way George W. Bush Helped To Cause The 2008 Financial Crisis

4:57 pm EST July 12th, 2011 | Conservative, Economy, Republicans | 72 Comments

One of the things progressives and conservatives often don’t appreciate is the power a presidential administration has over policy simply by the people they choose to hold vitally important jobs within the government.

America is a massive country, and besides the legislative process, it takes a lot to keep it working. As such, its always best if you appoint competent, capable people to help you run the government.

In the case of George W. Bush, there were three kinds of people he installed in the government. The smallest group was actual, competent people. Very few of these were in place during the Bush years.

The second group of people were the totally incompetent. That includes people like Michael Brown, who had no business running FEMA or Donald Rumsfeld, who got more American servicemen killed as a result of bungled war planning than probably any Secretary Of Defense in U.S. History.

The third, and often most damaging group, were ideologically conservative zealots — people who drink the right-wing kool-aid so much that they would rather bend reality than face it. This group, of course, included the President and Vice-President themselves.

It is this group of people who perverted the Justice Department, made a mockery of diplomacy at the State Department, botched military operations at the Pentagon, and made a general mess of things while running the country. Granted, some people in the Bush administration were incompetent ideological zealots. Alberto Gonzales comes to mind.

(I would also argue there aren’t nearly enough ideological people in the Obama administration.)

In this third group were the people executing the administration’s policy of supporting deregulated commerce, admittedly a holdover from the Clinton era – showing us that badly conceived conservative economic policy knows no party.

In this NY Times profile of outgoing FDIC chair Sheila Bair, we get a taste of what Bush’s policies had done to actual regulation of the work being done in the mortgage industry:

Arriving at the F.D.I.C. that summer, Bair found an agency that was floundering. “There hadn’t been any bank failures in a long time,” she said. “We were in this so-called golden age of banking, regulation had fallen out of favor and the F.D.I.C., which had a reputation as a tough regulator, had fallen on hard times.” Its budget had been slashed, employees had been let go and morale was terrible. Except for a 10-second handshake, she never even spoke to Henry Paulson her first year or so in office.

Alone among the regulators, though, the F.D.I.C. began to home in on subprime lending. By 2006, the subprime industry was running amok, making loans — many of them fraudulent, with hidden fees and abusive terms — to just about anyone with a pulse. Most subprime loans had adjustable interest rates, which started low but then jumped significantly after a few years, making the monthly payments unaffordable for many homeowners. The lenders didn’t care because they sold the loans to Wall Street, which bundled them into mortgage-backed bonds and resold them to investors.

Curbing subprime-lending abuses should have been the job of the Federal Reserve, which has a consumer division. But the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, with his profound distaste for regulation, could not have been less interested. The other bank regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees national banks, and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates the savings-and-loan industry, should have cared, too. But their responses to the growing problem were at best tepid and at worst hostile. (The O.C.C. actually used its federal powers to block efforts by states to curb subprime abuses.) By the time Bair got to Washington, the O.C.C. had spent a year devising “voluntary subprime guidance” for the banks it regulated, but it had not yet gotten around to issuing that guidance.

Ah, “voluntary” regulation, the regulatory version of Bush’s famous “you covered your ass” statement about the threat of terrorism before 9/11. Even Bush’s SEC chairman, Chris Cox (I would place him in the incompetent appointment category) admitted that expecting our modern robber barons to police themselves was the height of folly.

But that’s what they did here, instead of providing oversight of an industry, they left the industry to its own devices – ignoring the warning signs, then using our money to bail out their pals.

If we had in our government people who truly believed their jobs were about helping America, instead of the zealotry of the Bush era, we’d be much better off today.

Topic: 2008 Financial Crisis, George W. Bush

Jon Huntsman, Media Candidate

10:10 am EST July 12th, 2011 | Republicans | 8 Comments

TPM has a story about Huntsman supposedly being over. Huntsman never was. The man has no constituency. There are no conservatives seriously for Huntsman, and Democrats have enough problems with centrist sentiment from Obama, they’re certainly not in the market for Jon Huntsman.

The only people in the Huntsman business is the media, specifically Matt Bai and the New York Times. Other than that, there is no Huntsman support. He’s their candidate, nobody else’s.

Topic: 2012 Election, Jon Huntsman, Republican Primary

If US Government Defaults, Eric Cantor Stands To Profit

1:32 pm EST June 29th, 2011 | Economy, Republicans | 37 Comments

I wish I weren’t so cynical that I would actually believe that the majority leader of the US House Of Representatives would actually push us to financial chaos in order to personally profit. But I am that cynical because I’ve watched these people for years now.

Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable. (A short is when the trader hopes to profit from the decline in the value of an asset.)

According to his latest financial disclosure statement, which covers the year 2010 and has been publicly available since this spring, Cantor still has up to $15,000 in the same fund. Contacted by Salon this week, Cantor’s office gave no indication that the Virginia Republican, who has played a leading role in the debt ceiling negotiations, has divested himself of these holdings since his last filing. Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.

Topic: Eric Cantor, US House

Former Bachmann Chief Of Staff: She’s Not Ready

3:07 pm EST June 28th, 2011 | Conservative, Republicans | 12 Comments

Oh my, this campaign roll out is a Gingrichian delight. Here’s Ron Carey, Michele Bachmann’s former chief of staff, discussing his former boss in the Des Moines Register:

Having seen the two of them, up close and over a long period of time, it is clear to me that while Tim Pawlenty possesses the judgment, the demeanor, and the readiness to serve as president, Michele Bachmann decidedly does not.

The Bachmann campaign and congressional offices I inherited were wildly out of control. Stacks upon stacks of unopened contributions filled the campaign office while thousands of communications from citizens waited for an answer. If she is unable, or unwilling, to handle the basic duties of a campaign or congressional office, how could she possibly manage the magnitude of the presidency?

BURN.

Topic: 2012 Election, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty

GOP Could Cause The SECOND Republican Recession

12:21 pm EST June 28th, 2011 | Business, Economy, Republicans | 8 Comments

They nearly killed the economy once, their refusal to raise the debt ceiling without more tax breaks for Paris Hilton and Bill Gates could yank the breathing tube again. Talk about a death panel.

If Congress fails to raise the national debt limit by early August, the Obama Treasury Department will have to choose between defaulting on obligations to the country’s creditors — triggering higher interest rates and perhaps damaging the country’s credit rating for months and years to come — or freezing outlays to contractors, entitlement beneficiaries and others who are also expecting prompt payment as well. In either case, the macroeconomic impact will be staggering, according to Zandi.

“I think we go into recession and my forecast would be blown out of the water,” he said. “I think if we get to August 2nd and there is no debt ceiling [increase] and there has to be significant spending cuts, I think even if Congress and the administration reverse themselves days later, I think the damage will have been serious and we’ll probably be thrown into a recession.”

I would advise President Obama to appeal to their sense of patriotism, but who are we trying to kid here?