Shenanigans: the GOP-led House vs. working and middle class Americans

“They hate Obama so much they are willing to raise taxes!” — Andrew Sullivan on the GOP

A strange thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill. As Rep. Stenny Hoyer (D-MD) attempted to call for a vote to extend a payroll tax cut to middle class and working Americans, his Republican colleagues adjourned the House and walked out of the chamber. And if that weren’t odd enough, it got even stranger: As Hoyer railed against them for failing to help working Americans, footage from C-SPAN went silent, then cut away. Moments later, C-SPAN took to the Internet to explain that it wasn’t their doing, but someone working for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Read more: Boehner’s office cuts off C-SPAN cameras as GOP takes verbal beating

VIDEO: (The feed is cut off at 1:31):

…

OBAMA DIRECTLY CALLS OUT BOEHNER: STOP THE GAMES (via ryking)

“House Republicans say they don’t dispute the need for a payroll tax cut. What they are holding out for is to ring concessions from Democrats on issues that have nothing to do with the payroll tax cut — issues where the parties fundamentally disagree. A one year deal is not the issue…

The clock is ticking. Time is running out. And if the House Republicans refuse to vote for the Senate bill, or even allow it to come up for a vote, taxes will go up in 11 days.

I saw today that one of the House Republicans referred to what they’re doing as “high stakes poker.” He’s right about the stakes. But this is not poker….This is not a game for the average family who doesn’t have 1,000 bucks to lose. It’s not a game for somebody who’s out there looking for work right now, and might lose his house if unemployment insurance doesn’t come through. It’s not a game when the millions of Americans take a hit when the entire economy grows more slowly because these proposals aren’t extended…

I’m calling on the Speaker and the House Republican leadership to bring up the Senate bill for a vote. Give the American people the assurance they need in this holiday season.”

TPM: REALITY. WHAT A CONCEPT?

No one disagrees at this point that the politics of the payroll tax stand-off is awful for Republicans. But in the midst of that realization there is chatter from folks at the Journal and a lot of flotsamy pundits to the effect that it is a dramatic political failure that Republicans have managed to make President Obama into the champion of tax cuts for average Americans.

To say that it is a stunning political failure suggests that the impression is wildly out of line with objective reality. But that’s not true. The President has been pushing middle and lower-middle class tax relief as the most viable (at least the most politically viable) path for stimulus. He’s redoubled on it in the last six months. But it was actually a major part of his original stimulus bill that passed with no Republican support in the House and virtually none in the Senate. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have been pushing a mix of budget cutting and tax cuts for high income voters. And they still are.

FINALLY: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AREN’T AS DUMB AS FOX NEWS WOULD HAVE US BELIEVE, AFTER ALL:

image: namelessgenxer

Related:

Newt Gingrich offered some support to House Republicans in Iowa by saying Senate Democrats performed a “total dereliction of duty” when they extended the holiday for only two months. (ThinkProgress) As if no one is paying attention…

The GOP-led House is holding the payroll tax cut hostage because of Big Oil and Coal regulation. (UTMB) It’s not about 2 months vs. one year.

Mitt Romney dismissed the issue as an “internal battle,” “deep in the weeds,” and “sausage making.” (ThinkProgress) There’s leadership for you!!

Even Karl “GOP uber-strategist” Rove is advising House Republicans to pass the Senate’s two-month payroll tax holiday extension because “they’ve already lost the optics on it.” (ThinkProgress) Politics above everything.

Karl Rove, Mitt Romney and the rest of the assholes in the Republican Party could learn something from the phrase, “Imported from Detroit,” don’t you think? Yes, the auto bailouts worked. You want to make the life or death of the American manufacturing industry about politics? Please do. Go for it. There are many of us who are fully aware of which side you’ve been on for the past three decades…

Karl Rove was offended by the inspiring “Halftime in America” Chrysler ad

…

This is all they got? (part 1) Rove repeats a tired lie - Here was Rove on Fox News last night, telling Sean Hannity about President Obama giving a loan to Brazil. “The president gave a loan to Brazil. Brazil which is eating our lunch economically internationally, why do they need our money? They have plenty of their own. [Obama] gave them a loan and told them, as you’ve just alluded to, went down there and said we want to be your best customer.” This again? Are Republicans still pushing this bogus story? I remember writing an item setting the record straight in 2010, after having seen it debunked in 2009. […] The loan was approved by appointees of — you guessed it — the Bush/Cheney administration.

…

Mystery donor gives $10 million to Crossroads GPS group to run ads against Obama and Democrats – The huge contributions, which make the donors among the top political givers in recent history, offer new evidence of the altered world of campaign finance: After the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, spending by interest groups has risen dramatically. The landmark ruling allowed corporations, unions and nonprofit groups such as Crossroads GPS to spend money directly on electoral politics. Crossroads GPS and its sister group, American Crossroads, hope to spend up to $300 million in the 2012 election cycle, promoting conservative ideas and helping elect Republicans up and down the ballot.

SWIFTBOATING OBAMA— Can Obama be swift boated? That’s the idea behind this attack ad from Veterans for a Strong America, which slams the president for taking too much credit for Osama bin Laden’s death. The group’s founder tells Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein that he’s recruiting Navy SEALs to openly criticize Obama: “We’re gonna be rolling some of those folks out soon.” Want to know who’s funding the group? Sorry, it’s a 501(c)4, so it doesn’t have to reveal its donors or how much money it has.– Mother Jones

The rightwing will never get over it:

The Koch-Arends-Rove Swiftboating Ad on the President was aired nationally, for FREE, by ABC’s This Week

Then the round-table discussed it, as if it were anything but a political hit piece in a campaign season. That’s your liberal media, plebs.

What Everyone Should Know About The Secretive Group Trying To Swift Boat Barack Obama

The group’s leader and sole employee, Joel Arends, told Mother Jones, “Yes, it’s the swift boating of the president.”

…

3. Arends also tried to Swift Boat Obama in 2008. Arends, under the auspices of a similar group called “Vets for Freedom,” ran an ad accusing Obama of refusing to meet with wounded soldiers from Illinois. [NPR,7/5/08] …

4. Arends worked as a consultant for the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Properity. “Though he doesn’t list it on his public resume, around 2006 Arends went to work for Craig Dewey, the state director of Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy outfit that’s Astroturfed everything from the tea party and the Wisconsin union fight to public-school segregation.” The Koch Brothers and their allies have pledged to spend $100 million to defeat Obama. [Mother Jones, 5/4/12; HuffingtonPost, 2/3/12]

7. Arends helped promote a documentary advocating war with Iran. Arends appeared on a panel in South Dakoa promoting the documentary Iranium, which strongly suggests beginning a war with Iran, in March 2011. [Flier; ThinkProgress, 11/3/11]

8. Veterans for A Strong American is fully endorsed by Karl Rove. The man known as “Bush’s Brain” tweeted his support of their first web ad. [Twitter,5/3/12]

Continue reading…

OBAMA CAMP: You’re damn right we take credit for killing bin Laden – The Obama re-election campaign doesn’t appear fazed by attacks from the right about “politicizing” the killing of Osama bin Laden, and on Sunday remained on offense over what it said was one of the president’s accomplishments. “The president hasn’t been spiking the ball,” said President Obama’s senior campaign adviser David Axelrod on ABC’s This Week. “This was the one-year anniversary. It’s part of his record. And it’s certainly a legitimate part of his record to talk about.” Axelrod said Obama followed through with his promise that catching the al-Qaeda leader would be a top priority. “And then he ordered a mission that was — was, frankly, risky, dangerous,” he said. “Bob Gates said it was one of the most courageous, one of the gutsiest decisions he’s ever seen a president make. And it turned out successfully.” Axelrod was responding to an outside conservative group’s ad — hailed by Karl Rove and widely discussed in the conservative blogosphere — that utilizes ominous music to sharply attack Obama for taking credit for the killing of Bin Laden on the first anniversary last week. “Heroes don’t seek credit,” the ad said. “Heroes don’t politicize their acts of valor.” “Yes, it’s the swift boating of the president,” the leader of the group told Mother Jones. Republicans were particularly peeved that Obama’s campaign commercial about the killing quoted 2007 remarks from his likely opponent Mitt Romney saying it’s “not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars” to catch bin Laden. — TPM

ONE YEAR AGO, President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, ending a near-decade-long manhunt. Amid U.S. celebrations, it was largely forgotten that the delay in getting the terrorist leader resulted from blunders by George W. Bush and his neocon advisers, Robert Parry wrote in 2011. […] Though it remains unclear what the long-term consequences of this action will be, Obama’s success – after years of Bush’s failure – does suggest one important lesson: U.S. officials would be well advised to ignore the special pleadings of the neocons who remain highly influential inside Official Washington. The neocons, along with other Bush advisers, exploited the 9/11 tragedy to justify a policy of inserting U.S. military forces into the heart of the Arab world to the detriment of bringing the masterminds of 9/11 to justice. That miscalculation did horrendous damage to both the United States and the people of the Middle East. It also allowed Osama bin Laden to remain at large for more than nine years. — Consortiumnews

Rove Group Drops $25 Million In A Single Month To Attack Obama – Crossroads GPS, a group backing Mitt Romney that is affiliated with Republican strategist Karl Rove, will spend $25 million this month on ads attacking President Obama on his spending record. The campaign will begin on Thursday with an $8 million ad buy that will run in 10 states. — Think Progress

(Source: underthemountainbunker.com)

Sheldon Adelson plans to purchase the very best White House his money can buy

Daily Intel reports: Conservative casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has reportedly pledged a total of $35 million to three conservative nonprofits: the Karl Rove–linked Crossroads GPS, an unspecified group with ties to the Koch brothers, and a third affiliated with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. This is in addition to the $10 million he gave to pro-Romney super-PAC Restoring Our Future last week… Sources say he’s ready to commit $100 million to right-wing causes and candidates this year.

Remember that $100 million to Sheldon Adelson is about $300 – $400 to an average family.

Additionally, John McCain said recently that Sheldon Adelson “is indirectly injecting millions of dollar in Chinese foreign money into Mitt Romney’s presidential election effort,” according to Josh Rogin.

Those facts would probably be reported more by the mainstream media, if all the billionaires didn’t own the mainstream media.

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign may be the greatest business decision the one percent ever made

The super secret, exclusive shindig for Mitt Romney’s biggest donors in Park City, Utah, dubbed the “First National Romney Victory Leadership Retreat,” over the weekend has some interesting details. If you don’t find this information at least a little bit alarming, I suggest you check yourself for a pulse.

Politico describes the setting — “Eight hundred top donors gathered in the ballroom of a resort here to watch the presentation: the Romney campaign for president is organized, efficient and run like a business. In other words, their money is being wisely invested. The price tag for entry to the exclusive donor retreat was $50,000 and included access to some of the GOP’s biggest names — Jeb Bush, Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, as well as a briefing from top Romney officials on how they planned to beat President Barack Obama in November. It was a way of saying “thank you” to the hundreds of bundlers — fundraisers who tap their network of friends, family and associates to raise far more than the $2,500 they are allowed to individually contribute to a campaign. While Obama discloses his bundler list, Romney shrouds his in secrecy and the goings-on this weekend were held strictly behind closed doors.”

And who are the lucky folks who scored exclusive invitations? No idea.

…

Steve Benen comments – ”All of this, apparently, is “a way to reward top-performing bundlers, who make their own donations and then raise many times that from their networks of friends and associates.” To be sure, this is quite a treat for these bundlers, who will reportedly be “briefed on campaign strategy” during the posh affair (the agenda for Saturday evening includes “dessert and dancing”). […] Unlike George W. Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama, each of whom voluntarily disclosed the names of their bundlers, Romney refuses to share this information, preferring to maintain a veil of secrecy over his fundraising operation. These bundlers are poised to get extraordinary access to Republican leaders and the man who may be president next year, but we aren’t allowed to know who they are.”

The NYTimes describes the complete access to power for the wealthiest — “Everybody was completely accessible,” said Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier and Romney fund-raiser who said the candidate took the time to warmly greet and thank him by his nickname, Mooch, at a dinner on the first night of the retreat. […] Donors were unabashed about their desire to have face time with those who might constitute the brain trust in a Romney White House. David A. Wish, a Florida doctor and Romney fund-raiser, said that in order to sell the candidate to potential contributors, “we need one-on-one time with the people who make decisions.” […] On Thursday night, Mr. Rove held court on a hotel balcony with about a half-dozen financial executives, who peppered him with questions about Mr. Romney’s chances… After Mr. Rove walked away, the gaggle of men excitedly recounted the conversation, reveling in their access. “That’s the price of admission right there,” one donor said to another. “Your six minutes with Rove.”

And, according to Buzzfeed, Bain was there — “Flight records passed along by a Democratic source show that the Bain Capital Jet company jet flew from Bedford, Massachusetts to airfield near Romney’s Utah donor retreat on Friday.”

Think Progress notes that Karl Rove’s participation at this event demonstrates Romney’s poor judgement and hypocrisy – A Saturday panel on “media insight” will feature American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS co-founder Karl Rove. The Crossroads reportedly plan to spend a stunning $300 million to help Romney defeat President Barack Obama this November, but they are legally prohibited from coordinating this effort with Romney’s campaign. […] in December, Romney decried the rise of Super PACs like Rove’s American Crossroads, saying they have been a “disaster” for the political system. He said at the time: Super PACs have to be entirely separate from a campaign and a candidate. I’m not allowed to communicate with a super PAC in any way, shape or form… If we coordinate in any way whatsoever, we go to the big house.