The Republican effort to redefine rape a "priority" with Boehner

This is not a funny issue and woe be to any candidate at the national level who think this will help them. This is a disgusting effort by the GOP to redefine rape in hopes of gaining legal inroads to overturn abortion. The new language would say that rape is only really rape if it involves force.

Today, news hit that a Georgia state lawmaker introduced a bill changing the state legal codes to refer to a rape victim as a "rape accuser".

Apart from the absolutely vile nature of this effort, how, exactly, does this pertain to the "jobs, jobs, jobs" commitment from the GOP when they took the House? This isn't about jobs, it's about cynically reigniting the culture wars and re-litigating any laws that they don't like.

Mother Jones

the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion.

Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure.

Jon Stewart, predictably, had a field day with this.

GOP's jobs agenda is less about jobs, more about agenda

Examples of things the new Republican House is concentrating on that are not job-related:

Redefining rape and incest in order to re-ignite the anti-aborition culture war

Race-baiting on immigration - more culture war

Rewriting the Climate Act

Cutting the VA budget

Making incorrect constitutional statements, this time alleging that the Constitution eradicated slavery)

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

Stewart catches GOP recycling same old plans as part of new Pledge

The Republican Pledge to Further Screw America

Dan Pfeiffer

Tonight, we learned more details about the Congressional Republican agenda – their “Pledge to America.” With this plan, they have made clear that they want to take America back to the same failed economic policies that caused this recession. Instead of charting a new course, Congressional Republicans doubled down on the same ideas that hurt America’s middle class.

Here’s what they made clear:

•Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by borrowing $700 billion we can’t afford;

•Tax hikes for 110 million middle-class families and millions of small businesses;

•Cutting rules and oversight for special interests like big oil, big insurance, credit card and mortgage companies and Wall Street banks;

•Doing nothing to stop the outsourcing of American jobs or to end tax breaks that are given to companies that ship jobs overseas;

•All while adding trillions to our nation’s deficit.

Their plan is also notable for what it doesn’t talk about: protecting Social Security and Medicare from privatization schemes; investing in high-quality education for our nation’s children; growing key industries like clean energy and manufacturing; and rebuilding our crumbling roads, rails and runways.

This is the same agenda that caused the deepest recession since the Great Depression, costing 8 million jobs, wiping out trillions in family wealth and setting middle-class families back. Instead of a pledge to the American people, Congressional Republicans made a pledge to the big special interests to restore the same economic ideas that benefited them at the expense of middle-class families.

Republican election strategy = The Amazing Race

The GOP has gone full on nuts, nominating some real doozys (doozies? - whatever). In New York, you've got Chuck Paladino who sends out emails like this, "all in good fun".

In Delaware, they nominated anti-masturbation, pro-lying/crazy quotes, no intelligence Christine O'Donnell over Mike Castle. Castle, by the way, was up 10 points in head-to-head polling versus Chris Coons. O'Donnell is down 16, with Karl Rove - KARL FREAKING ROVE - calling her "nutty" and admitting she's unelectable.

The GOP/Tea Party feud has begun.

So where does The Amazing Race fit in? Well, the GOP electoral "strategy" (used loosely) of nominating fringe, far-right whackjobs might just cost them the gains they'd been hoping for. In other words, it will have same effect as the watermelons fired from this slingshot. Start at :20 for the good stuff. Show that knight who's boss.

GOP economic efficiency: they can screw it up faster than we can fix it

John Kyl and the GOP openly favor oil companies over working Americans

Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) is deeply concerned about extending unemployment benefits for the neediest of working Americans. Almost 2 million of those out of work the longest because of the recession have seen their benefits go away. He has raised eyebrows by calling jobless benefits a necessary evil", despite the fact that the OMB and most economists correctly point out that putting money that will immediately be spent into the economy provides a boost.

TPM
Kyl dismissed the view of the Congressional Budget Office, and a large swath of economists, that during a recession, extending unemployment is one of the ripest forms of stimulus.

"CBO's been wrong before," Kyl said. "It's not a stimulus for the economy, to try to help people through tough times. It's a necessary evil, in a sense. We'd like not to have to raise revenue in order to pay people for not working--or not to pay them for not working, but because they can't get work."

"To me you shouldn't look at it as an economic matter, it's a humanitarian matter. You got people who are out of work, who can't find work, you want to help 'em out. Families need help. That's why you provide it. You don't do it because it's going to stimulate the economy. You have to borrow the money in order to pay the folks. That borrowing has huge costs. They are adverse economics costs. So it's not a good thing for the economy. It's a bad thing for the economy but it's still the right thing to do for other reasons.

But, he says: [C]ontinuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."

This Republican meme that people are living high-on-the-hog on unemployment benefits is a complete fallacy, and worse than that, an insult to anyone who has ever been forced to reply on the benefits.

SocialistWorker.com
No one who looks at the facts could take this seriously. The long-term unemployed aren't still jobless because they're enjoying the high life off an unemployment check that averages just over $300 a week--not much above the minimum wage, and not nearly enough to keep a family of three above the official poverty line.

The problem is that there aren't any jobs for the jobless. According to government statistics, there are almost five unemployed workers for every one job opening. Overall employment has grown since the beginning of the year, but not fast enough to keep up with the natural growth in the population, much less replace the 8 million jobs lost in the recession.

And for some some people who are jobless today, they may not work ever again--not because they're "lazy," but because age discrimination has made it even more difficult for workers in their 40s and 50s.

That hasn't stopped wingnut Senate-hopeful Sharron Angle of Nevada...

Allentown Morning-Call
"You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job that doesn't pay as much," Angle recently told an interviewer. "We've put so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry."

Ah, yes. The citizenry spoiled by sending jobs away and then handing out checks so they can drive their Cadillacs and live in leisure, not working, while titans of industry toil restlessly to support them.

However, when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthiest 3% of Americans (4 percent tax increase on those who make over $250,000), Senator Kyl is undisturbed by digging the deficit deeper to the tunes of $678 billion, even though that's close to the number for 10 years of health care for Americans that was also a problem.

Kyl tried to defend his contradictory positions to Chris Wallace of Fox News:

New York Times
Mr. Kyl's first line of defense was to dismiss Mr. Wallace's query as "a loaded question" because "the Bush tax cuts applied to every single American." Mr. Wallace pointed out that he was only referring to the top tax brackets.

Eventually, Mr. Kyl trotted out the tired and unsubstantiated argument that the tax cuts for the wealthy must be extended because otherwise "you're going to clobber small business." Mr. Wallace persisted: "But, sir, . . .how are you going to pay the $678 billion?" -- at which point Mr. Kyl descended into nonsense. "You should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes," he declared. "Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right to, if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and that's what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset [the] cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans."

So now stimulating the economy is a good thing, unless it's by direct infusions of cash under a program like TARP. TARP, which by the way, was proposed by Bush and continued under Obama but is being used to try to hang an non-existant albatross around Obama's neck.

Let's continue to oil company subsidies and tax breaks, to the tune of about $4 billion a year, which Kyl also supports. While stopping unemployment benefits (because of deficit concerns) and supporting tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Americans (despite deficit concerns), Kyl also supports tax breaks for big oil, an industry which rakes in billions a year selling a product to the American taxpayer that they've subsidized.

In fact, the oil companies pay a tax rate that ends up being far less than other, smaller and less-well-connected businesses:

New York Times
According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.

The standard GOP cry is that if we don't subsidize the oil companies, jobs will decrease, as will oil production. If that happens, the terrorists win. However:

New York Times
But some government watchdog groups say that only the industry’s political muscle is preserving the tax breaks. An economist for the Treasury Department said in 2009 that a study had found that oil prices and potential profits were so high that eliminating the subsidies would decrease American output by less than half of one percent.

“We’re giving tax breaks to highly profitable companies to do what they would be doing anyway,” said Sima J. Gandhi, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research organization. “That’s not an incentive; that’s a giveaway.”

So let's sum up the Kyl/GOP position:

Item: Deficit
Verdict: BAD

Item: Unemployment extension for working Americans hurt by the recession
Cost: $34 billion
Verdict: BAD - drives up the deficit

Item: Tax breaks for wealthiest 1% of Americans
Cost: $678 billion
Verdict: GOOD - although it drives up the deficit

Item: Tax breaks and subsidies for big oil on billions of dollars of profit
Cost: $4 billion
Verdict: GOOD - although it drives up the deficit.

Whose side are they on, tea partiers?

The party of NO? Yes, the party of NO! 7 GOP flip-flops to hurt Obama by weakening the country

PoliticsDaily

Seven Things Republicans Were For Before They Were Against Them

1. Financial disclosure
2. Cap and trade
3. Immigration
4. Deficit spending
5. Bipartisan deficit-reduction commission
6. Individual insurance mandate
7. Medicare spending curbs

Explanations? You want explanations, not just quick 'gotcha!' headlines? Absolutely, this isn't Fox News and I don't represent the GOP. Click through to read the excellent piece at PoliticsDaily.

Republicans say the darndest (dumbest) things

GOP unveils a new logo

"Small government" my ass; Republican bailout of BP continues

Bob Cesca

The Republican bail out for BP continues:

Republican Senator James Inhofe has stepped up to the plate yet again for big oil, pledging a Republican filibuster against legislation offered by New Jersey's Robert Menendez that would completely lift the $75 million liability cap currently protecting big oil companies from claims of economic damage from oil spills.

Paraphrasing John Cole, I thought the Republicans supported the free market in which corporations were unregulated and allowed to fail without government meddling.

Meanwhile, alleged free market state's rights small government southern Republican politicians continue to demand federal help and socialized federal money -- redistributed wealth from Pennsylvania and Illinois and New York and Massachusetts with all of its bleeding heart tree-hugging environmental wacko liberals.

Suck it, Republicans. Do they even recognize how staggeringly hypocritical and ridiculous this is?

Republicans spit in Tea Party faces by supporting the worst bank practices

Cesca

Last night, the Republicans were blocking a variety of reforms meant to curb some of the most ridiculous bank practices. Here's the rundown from Ryan Grim:

Tom Harkin was stifled in his effort Tuesday evening to bring a measure to the Senate floor that would cap ATM fees at 50 cents.

Blocked by Republicans.

...one of the most talked-about amendments, cosponsored by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). Levin-Merkley would ban commercial banks from trading for their own benefit with taxpayer-backed money.

Blocked by Republicans.

...an amendment from Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) that would rein in predatory practices of payday lenders and one from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would have banned naked credit default swaps, which were at the heart of the financial crisis.

Blocked by Republicans.

Hey wingnuts and teabaggers, this is your party. Next time you go the ATM and have to pay $2.50 just to access your own money, thank your party leaders in the Senate. And when banks continue to gamble with taxpayer money and then demand bailouts when they fail, thank your party leaders in the Senate. The Republican Party is engaged in backdoor bailouts of the banks. And you want to elect more of them?

GOP walks TARP tightrope: they voted for it, it worked, but they have to campaign against it

Republican Senators like John Cornyn (R-TX), John McCain (R-AZ), Bob Bennett (R-UT), and Judd Gregg (R-NH) are stuck in a nasty position. The TARP bailout, which they voted for, worked. It saved us from a deepening depression and helped to turn the economy around.

The problem?

One, it's bolstering the approval ratings of the interloper from Kenya. Two, the wingnuts hate it.

So the GOP has to run against something they voted for that worked because their constituents are crazy.

Ouch.

Interesting quote:

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who's retiring at the end of the year and is therefore unencumbered by the need to defend himself from the GOP base, has nothing to run away from.

"It was extremely effective. Not only was it effective and stabilized the financial industry, it also returned to the taxpayers almost $20 billion in interest and dividends that they would have otherwise not have."

GOP kills Jobs and Education bill by forcing a vote on porn

TPM

In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.

Stay classy Republicans.

I'm really not worried about the midterms because I refuse to believe that there are that many Americans that are fooled by this petty, spiteful, superficial nonsense. Right?

Right?

%*&@

The Tea Party's Pretty Hate Machine

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva's office has received multiple threats over a new state immigration measure. Grijalva says he's opposed to the bill that would make it a crime under state law to be in the county illegally and would allow police to demand identification from anyone they suspected of being potentially illegal (ie: skin color).

The Arizona Daily Star reports that Grijalva spokesman Adam Sarvana released a statement Friday saying that the congressman's office received "some pretty scary calls," including one from a man "who threatened to go down there and blow everyone's brains out then go to the border to shoot Mexicans."

According to the Daily Star:

Grijalva staffer Ruben Reyes said the office has been flooded with calls all week about Senate Bill 1070. About 25 percent are "very racist" in nature, Reyes said, characterizing some as "telling that tortilla-eating wetback to go back to Mexico."

I'm willing to bet that the callers weren't A) black B) Hispanic C) Democrats

The Republican Governor's Association, led by Mississippi Governor, Confederate History Month pooh-pooher (slavery controversy "doesn't amount to diddly"), and possible 2012 candidate Haley Barbour, has embraced British terrorist Guy Fawkes. You know, the guy who tried to assassinate the king by blowing up Parliament. Sounds reasonable.

'But', you say, 'it's just rhetoric'. Really? Explain this guy (via ThinkProgress) and tell me the GOP isn't trying to mobilize guys just like him.



A truck, parked in a disabled person parking spot, emblazoned with a large Confederate flag, and featuring a picture of the World Trade Center burning. The text on the truck reads, “Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11″:

Think Progress

While most sites focused on the offensive text and imagery all over the truck, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) noticed that the license plate contained a coded Neo-Nazi white supremacist message. CAIR alerted the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which prohibits placing offensive messages on vanity plates but had missed this one in its normal authorization process. Upon review, the DMV concluded the plate did indeed contain a coded hate message, and recalled the plate:

The number 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, doubled to signify “Heil Hitler,” said CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper. “CV” stands for “Confederate veteran” — the plate was a special model embossed with a Confederate flag, which Virginia makes available for a $10 fee to card-carrying members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And 14 is code for imprisoned white supremacist David Lane’s 14-word motto: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Cesca

And then there's the photograph of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. I've never been able to figure out the wingnut worship of those buildings on fire with people falling to their deaths. But then to print this particular photo on the back of a pick-up truck seems remarkably disrespectful and, dare I say, unpatriotic. Yep. Nothing says "sweet decoration" like a photo showing the deaths of thousands of people on one of the bloodiest days in American history.

By the way, the Virginia DMV pulled the license plate number once they discovered what it meant.

This, this whole movement, is sedition.

The GOP runs on race because it apparently works

Not all of the anti-Obama sentiment is race-based. Just most of it.

Look at the Tea party complaints and the lack of truth behind them and then ask yourself, 'if this is a red herring, what's the real reason for the opposition?':
1) Taxes
TRUTH) Obama lowered them for 95% of working families

2) Health care
TRUTH) You can debate a states rights version of government power here (though the right has not), but the truth is that it's ridiculous for most tea partiers to oppose health care because, even by the worst objective numbers, we pay 1% more to cover 34 million more people (via Ezra) and reduce overall health care costs. Many of the beneficiaries of this coverage are tea partiers. Tea partiers who also, by the way, accept government run Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

TRUTH) It's NOT a government takeover. This is being done through private companies and if anyone thinks they're in danger, look at their stock prices post HCR

3) Subverting the Constitution
TRUTH) Where specifically? As the interviews with the Tax Day protesters showed, many cannot articulate their positions beyond "socialism". When questioned about what, exactly, this President is doing to endanger this country, they cannot answer.

Where were the protests when Bush launched an illegal war, based on lies and without a formal declaration of war? Where were the tea partiers when Bush gutted Due Process and the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus? Where were the demonstrations when Bush rolled back posse comitatus, allowing the Federal government to use the military in the streets of America to act as law enforcement?

Where were they then?

Given the lack of answers to these questions, the Tea Partiers inability to articulate their reasons for opposition and their failure to act when their rights were really being taken away, we have to conclude that their are other reasons for their opposition to Obama.

Look at this graph from the Washington Post via The Electoral Map. Look at where McCain's support came from.


In every state that was a part of the Confederacy, McCain won a greater share of white votes than he did nationally.

Given conservatives general dissatisfaction with McCain as a candidate I'd suggest that this is at least partially a referendum on Obama. As a black man.

Michael Steele, the chair of the RNC, acknowledged last week that the Southern Strategy is real. The Southern Strategy, cooked up by Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan, was designed to appeal to southern whites by practicing racially-divisive politics in the post-Civil Rights era to build a reliable Southern bloc for the the Republicans. The GOP has denied this for years. Until Steele:

The Plum Line

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties. Their parties walk away from them.

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

There's nothing illegal about admitting you're voting on race. True, I believe that it makes you an anachronism, but it's not illegal. But it is completely dishonest, intellectually and otherwise, to try to hide your true opposition behind charged code words. Obama is not a socialist. He's not a Muslim. He is black.

Just admit it.

Tea Party voters are low-information who want a salve, not a solution; GOP leaders are just obstructionists

Paul Krugman

Via Matthew Yglesias, Gallup finds voters not that eager to crack down on large banks and financial institutions — but substantially more eager to crack down on “Wall Street banks.”

Republicans account for most though not all the difference, leading Yglesias to suggest that it’s dislike of New York that does it. Maybe; but I think what it really tells us is how little voters — and, I dare say, Republican voters in particular — understand the issues. My bet is that a lot of people really don’t realize that when we use the shorthand of referring to Wall Street, we’re actually talking about high finance in general. Scary — and it’s a lack of understanding that the likes of Mitch McConnell are happy to exploit.

And it extends farther. It extends to dubious statements by elected officials like Bobby Jindal who, in criticizing government spending, asked why the government would want to spend.... just read:



It's nonsense, it's selling balms and salves instead of solutions. It's Sarah Palin proving herself to be an idiot.

Steve Benen

Sarah Palin criticized President Barack Obama on Saturday for saying America is a military superpower "whether we like it or not," saying she was taken aback by his comment.

"I would hope that our leaders in Washington, D.C., understand we like to be a dominant superpower," the former Alaska governor said. "I don't understand a world view where we have to question whether we like it or not that America is powerful."

As Benen points out:

Reading comprehension isn't one of the former half-term governor's strengths, so perhaps it's not surprising that Palin is badly misquoting, and deliberately misunderstanding, what the president said.

Palin, who is painfully, conspicuously unintelligent, wasn't quite sharp enough to understand the president's remarks. Perhaps he should have chosen words with fewer syllables.

He didn't say there's a potential problem with the U.S. being a superpower; he said it's important for Americans to appreciate the global responsibilities that come with that power when conflicts arise, and the sweeping effects of these conflicts on the country's global interests.

It's Republicans, so eager to rip Obama for anything, that they'll attack their own sacred cow in a fit of hypocrisy.

As Obama signs a deal to reduce nuclear arms, and as he hosts 47 world leaders to secure loose fissile material to prevent it from falling into their own hands, he's being ripped by the right. But Obama's actions are an extension of Reagan's dream:

Progress in Action

Ronald Reagan said that nuclear weapons are “totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” … “[F]or the eight years I was president,” he wrote in his memoirs, “I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.” … “We live in a troubled world, and the United States and China, as two great nations, share a special responsibility to help reduce the risks of war. We both agree that there can be only one sane policy to preserve our precious civilization in this modern age: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.”

It's outright obstruction on 101 non-controversial nominees just to hold up progress. It's about saying "No".



And finally, it's the individual Tea Partiers who obviously don't even understand what they're protesting. Maybe they should just say "we don't like black Presidents". Disgusting.

GOP dilemma: how to take a position when doing so will expose your incoherence

the Republicans have done such a great job of spraying nonsense all over the place that as we get closer to a real vote, they're stuck in an awkward position. They've been for nothiong except "No" for so long, that they're 1) afraid to commit to a position because 2) they have no position.

They want to put forth some, you know.... ideas. But putting forth ideas means having them. Having ideas means taking a stand on an issue. That is quite different than the current practice of saying "We're for whatever makes the black guy look bad, so whatever he says is good, we think it's socialism and he's probably a Kenyan Nazi. Or something. Boo."

So they've now come up with a reason NOT to put out any ideas:

Politico

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor wants a document, akin to Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract With America, that identifies specific pieces of legislation Republicans could pass if they win back the House. He thinks Republicans should “put up or shut up,” an aide close to the process said. So does Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the House Republican Conference chairman. The party doesn’t need “sloganeering,” someone familiar with his thinking said.

....But Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who is leading the effort to craft the document, says that including specific legislation in the contract would smack of the backroom deals the GOP accuses Democrats of making, so “you won’t see it written out.”

The other issue with "stands" and "ideas" is that putting out more than one will display the fundamental incoherence of their positions.

On the topic of bank reform, how do you choose to run on the standard GOP practice of being anti-regulation when doing so leaves us open to another meltdown, AND reminds people that it was largely your policies that allowed the meltdown to happen in the first place?

Steve Benen
Sen. Scott Brown (R–Mass.) explaining that he can't support financial reform because it's "going to be an extra layer of regulation." Which is like saying that you don't want better brakes on your car because "they're going to slow me down." And when the reporter followed up to ask what he wanted fixed in the current bill, he just got completely flummoxed: "Well, what areas do you think should be fixed?" he said. "I mean, you know, tell me. And then I'll get a team and go fix it.''

Are people really considering voting for them? They've said "we're for nothing in particular, but we're against what Obama is doing because he's (insert racially-tinged, politically-inaccurate, stubbornly-dumb, hypocritical epithet here).

(via Mother Jones)

Mitch McConnell and GOP called out for hypocrisy, bribes for siding with Wall Street banks

Mitch McConnell has been making floor statements all week, criticizing the Administration plan to break up banks deemed "too big to fail", in an effort to avoid another near meltdown and the bailout that followed it.

This has put the GOP in an uncomfortable position. Always anti-regulation, Republicans have backed themselves into a corner: do they support government regulation of the banking industry to prevent another wipeout, or do they stand with the banks?

The answer has seemed to be, at least for leadership in the GOP, stand with the banks. This is not a popular decision.

Huff Post

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is "unabashedly courting Wall Street bankers for political money" and "happy to scratch their backs if they'll scratch his," opines McConnell's hometown newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, in an unusually strong rebuke.

In a staff editorial headlined "McConnell to big banks' rescue," the Herald-Leader decries McConnell's pandering to Wall Street executives and repeated use of the catch phrases outlined in an anti-financial reform memo written by pollster Frank Luntz.

Here's part of the Herald-Leader's outrage:

Lexington Herald-Reader

McConnell's statements are perfectly calibrated to inflame the public. He insists the bill would "allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks."

Their resemblance to the truth is another matter.

...
McConnell, it should be remembered, voted for the bailout of the big investment banks in the fall of 2008, when it was the only alternative to global economic meltdown.

We have read that the Republicans have a plan for financial reform, but McConnell isn't talking up any solutions, just trashing the other side's ideas with no respect for the truth.

While the intricacies of financial regulation are complicated, McConnell's calculus is pretty obvious.

And here's Rachel with a takedown:

Endorsement of GOP candidate: "You’ve got the black one with the reading thing"

Stay classy, Republicans.

Dave Weigel

Via Jonathan Chait, we see Vietnam War hero Bud Day — known these days for his support of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his habit of constantly wearing his Medal of Honor around his neck — giving Charlie Crist an endorsement he might regret.

“You know, we just got through (electing) a politician who can run his mouth at Mach 1, a black one, and now we have a Hispanic who can run his mouth at Mach 1,” Day said. “You look at their track records and they’re both pretty gritty. Charlie has not got a gritty track record.”

Day confirmed he was speaking of Obama and Rubio.

“You’ve got the black one with the reading thing. He can go as fast as the speed of light and has no idea what he’s saying,” Day said. “I put Rubio in that same category, except I don’t know if he’s using one of those readers.”